April r, 1884.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



703 



No one cau deny that this honour is clue to De Yneze. 

 Tet Junghuhn afErms that it was the Minister of Colonies 

 Pahud who gave the orders for this ; but it is more pre- 

 sumable thit the first aud only j^iant obtained by exchange, 

 was reared in the Leyden Hortus out of love of science. 

 For surely if the government had taken the initiative, the 

 trial would not have been begun on so small a scale as 

 to render the success dejjendent on a single specimen. 

 Not till then did Government interfere, and Mr. J. Hass- 

 karl, eidevant Director of the Government Botanical Gard- 

 ens at Buiteuzorg, was charged with a mission to Peru 

 to collect seeds aud plants for the culture in Java. The 

 commission was first oiiered to Junghuhn, but however 

 flattering this was for time, and however, much he desired 

 to make acquaintance with the soil — the country that had 

 become so celebrated by Von Humboldt's travels — he dec- 

 hned, and recommended to the Government his friend 

 Hasskarl. 



.Innghuhn himself tells the story in the following words : 

 *' I\Iy old acquaintance of Java, the botanist J. K. Hasskarl 

 was snatched from his sphere, as, in order to proWde for 

 himself aud his family, he had accepted of a mercantile 

 employment at DusseKlorf . He was unhappy, and pestered 

 me with entreaties to endeavour to procure him some 

 situation again in Netherland India. No shadow of a pro- 

 spect had presented itself hitherto, and no other oppor- 

 tunity could be seized upon but this, viz., the intended 

 mission to S. America, which I should so m iich have liked 

 to undertake my.self. I am not ashamed to confess, that 

 two contending motives long struggled within my breast, 

 and that when at la.st the unselfish motive conquered, aud, 

 instead of executmg the newly formed plan in person, I re- 

 commended Mr. Hasskarl, this proceeded from pure phil- 

 anthropy, Cantas, and from no other motives."* 



And so it happened that Hasskarl set foot on shore the 

 31st of January ISj'A at C'allao, lingered in Peru till July 

 1S54, and arrived at Batavia the lath of December of the 

 same year with a collection of plants, of which, however, 

 only 78 remained alive, aud a quantity of seed of differ- 

 ent kinds of cinchona, a part of which had aheady been 

 sent to the various Dutch Botanical Gardens. Both at 

 Leyden and Amsterdam as also at Utrecht the germination 

 had succeeded, but at Buitenzorg the first seeds failed en- 

 tirely. The young plants of Hasskarl were set in the ground 

 at Tjibodas, but the.se, too, soon began to pine, and in 

 spite of the continual supply of young plants from the 

 Gardens at Leyden and Amsterdam, the culture at Tjibodas 

 did not prosper. From good authority the observation has 

 been made that it was a mistake to sow the light winged 

 seeds hke those of the cinchona in the open ground, a point 

 that certainly did not escape the attention of Hasskarl 

 and Teysmann. Afterwards recourse was had to germin- 

 ating houses. The choice of the ground, too, on the slopes 

 of the Gedeh-mountains, was, according to Junghuhn, an 

 error. The stratum of humus was not deep enough, so 

 that the roots soon abutted on an impenetrable layer of 

 alum-slate (wadns) and the plants began to pme. The 

 Buitenzorg hortulanus F., however, ha.s contradicted this, 

 and shown that several plants were souml and throve 

 vigorously. 



Another observation of Junghuhn's, and perhaps not an 

 ill-founded one, was regarding the elevation at which the 

 nursery was placed at Tjibodas and a consequent too high 

 average temperature. It lies 4,000 feet above the sea, and 

 the average temperature is 19 ' . 



Finally H. is said to have committed the faidt— at least ac- 

 cording to Junghuhn — of clearmg the ground so as to make 

 it quite open, that is stripping it entirely of the shelter- 

 ing trees, whereby the tender cinchona plants where ex- 

 posed to the full rays of the sun. In short, the condition 

 of the cinchona-cultjire had advanced so little in the two 

 years that it was under the direction of Hasskarl, and the 

 observations of .Junghuhn were in the eyes of the Govern- 

 ment so well-founded, that the former " compelled bv 

 illness," had to give up the task he had hardly begun.-f 

 At the express desire of Government, Junghuhn, who had 

 meanwhile returned from his lesive of absence in Netherland 

 to Batavia, took the supervision and conduct of the cinchona- 

 culture upon himself, while Hasskarl, discontended with 



♦ Natuurk. Tijdschr. v. N. I. 1859-60. 

 t Oudeman'9 Pharmacognomie 1880, 



his position, returned to Europe."* These are Jimghuhn's 

 own words. On me they make the impression of some 

 other impulses having probably been at work than the 

 Cantas. with which, a couple of years before, the mission 

 to I'eru was so generously ceded. But we will drop the 

 curtain bore ; the fii-st act is played, and Jmighuhn was 

 to be the hero of the second. 



He, then, transported the young trees to the wood and 

 higher up the moimtains, but it was especially the .slopes 

 of the Blalawar and the Tangkoeban Free in Bandong 

 (Preanger Kegencios) t'lat he selected for the growth of 

 the cinchona. The nursery already laid out at Tji-miroean, 

 must be removed higher up, and fresh ones were made 

 at Lembang and Nagerak. He fixed the limits of the 

 culture from 4,o00 to 7,'>'H* feet above the sea, where the 

 average soil temperature is 17° C. 



Later experience, however, has shown that these limits 

 are to restricted, and that some sorts of cinchona take 

 kindly to a region even a thoiisand feet lower. But at that 

 time everything had to bo learnt and therefore it .shocks 

 us the more that Junghuhn was so hard and unfair upon 

 Hasskarl and Teysmann. 



"NVTiat was planted by him on the Malawar and the T. 

 Praoe slopes, were slips from Tjibodas, aud the seed also 

 came from thence. By his talents and energy, however, 

 he contrive to give ,a more vigorous impulse to the enter- 

 prise, made scientific observations, made fresh trials, built 

 nurseries and inspector's dwellings, and made regulations 

 for personel and material. Thus matters stood a year 

 later, in 1357. The number of trees in the open groimd 

 amounted then to 29S, of which 9.S were at Tjibodas. Among 

 these last there were two that were 15 or 16 feet in height, 

 which favourable circumstance did not speak to the discredit 

 of Hasskarl. At Tjimiroean some had shot up to 8 feet, 

 but most of the x^lants were only from j to 1^ foot higli. 



The Governor-General Pahud, under whose ministry the 

 cinchona culture in Java was effected, interested himself 

 already sufficiently in the cau.se to go and inspect the youth- 

 ful planting in Bandong. On the 29th of June 1857 he set 

 out from Buitenzorg. The train that marched from Ban- 

 dong to the mountains might well be termed splendid, and 

 it has been de.scribed to the life by Junghuhn in his report.f 

 The shrubs, the underwood, the liigh trees and their garlands 

 of trailing plants, are not only mentioned by name, but 

 he depicts them in form and colours, how they look in the 

 shade, or when lit up by a glancing ray of sunlight. He 

 engages you, as it were, to rise at dawn, when the feathered 

 songsters hail the first morning rays with their hymns, or 

 monkeys and squirrels gambol in the trees. Or. when dark- 

 ness falls upon the ravines, he lets hundreds of coolies 

 away their torches, shedding their glare on the train and 

 making the diamonds sparkle again on the doublets and 

 krisses of the village chiefs. Then we are fain to follow 

 .Tiva's greatest traveller, and revel in the glories of nature. 

 But when the last tones of the Javan nightingale have 

 died away, and the eye is surprised by the simnj' nm-sery- 

 grounds of Tjimiroean, then the civil officer steps forth, 

 charged with the direction of ^he cinchona cultm'e, and 

 for us all poesy vanishes. 



"With a flourish of trumpets the fact is proclaimed that 

 here, now, stand the very cinchona-trees, transported to Java 

 in 1S55 by the ship Minuter Pahud, that the planting out 

 at Tjibodas was indeed a couple of years older, but started 

 on a very unfavourable spot, and that he had been obliged 

 to advise the Government urgently to transfer the plants 

 brought over by him to Tjimiroean. And once more we 

 have to hear that here too, the almost irreparable fault 

 was committed of hewing down the sheltering trees, in 

 consequence of which many yoimg plants perished, as want- 

 ing the natural shelter against the scorching rays of the 

 sun. 



We are next told how the Governor-General was agree- 

 ably surprised by the announcement that some little trees 

 6 — 8 feet high, were shps which His Excellency had seen 

 half foot high in the Botunical Garden at Leyden, and which, 

 at his command had been handed over to him (Junghuhn) 

 to be transported to Java. 



If we consider that the number of trees was not more 

 than sixty, besides the slips in the nui-series, then we 



* Natuurkundig Tijdschrift v. N. I. 1859. 

 t Natuurkundig Tijdschrift van N. I. 1861. 



