Oct. !, 1886.J 



tUE TROPICAL AGRietJLTu^lSif. 



22^ 



THE NORTHERN TERRITORY OF AUSTRALIA. 



Poet Dakwin, July ()th. — The Government nur- 

 sery is now (July 9th) located at the new site about 

 a mile and a half from town. All buildings, fences, 

 and the most valuable plants have been removed 

 and work at the new nursery is now on a firm footing. 



A late visitor to Cox's I'eninsula says it is dis- 

 heartening to see the rapidity with which the two 

 abandoned plantations in that locality are revert- 

 ing to their primarj' condition of tangled jungle. 

 Nearly every vestige of the trees and plants in- 

 troduced at the cost of so much time and labour 

 on Erikson & Cloppenburg's holding have vanished, 

 one of the buildings has been destroyed by a bush 

 fire, and the remaining erections are on their last 

 legs, prematurely decaying for lack of a caretaker ; 

 the doors are falling from their fastenings, and 

 the interior of the dwellings have been monopolized 

 by white ants, who have riddled every article of 

 furniture left lying about, displaying a special 

 weakness for Scripture, for they have gone for 

 several Bibles with such vigour that little remains 

 but the bindings. Shovels, hoes, wheelbarrows, 

 coils of wire, blacksmith's tools, and several other 

 once useful articles are mouldering away in the 

 vicinity and quickly being dissolved into their ori- 

 ginal elements. Harris & Head's plantation, which 

 has not been abandoned very long, is in a better 

 state of preservation. There are numerous papaya- 

 trees and banana plants loaded with fruit, but there 

 is also a thick crop of tall grass growing right up 

 to tlie dwelling-house, which only needs a careless 

 spark to afford food for a fire which would sweep 



away every trace of what took so much toil to produce. 



.^ 



CINCHONA IN JAVA. 

 The following translation of Bl.Van Romunde's Re- 

 port on the Java Gardens for the 2nd quarter of this 

 year —recently received, has been made for the Observer. 

 The most noteworthy fact is that there is not the 

 slightest reference to "canker" in the Report ex- 

 tending up 10 30th June, but of course the Gov- 

 ernment Gardens may have escaped the trouble 

 so far. The Government crop of bark does not 

 increase ; — 

 Ria'ORT ON rni-; Goveunment Cinchona Plantations 



FOR TJIE 2nd OUARTEK OF 188(i. 



The rains continued to about the middle of May. 

 The latter half of the month was very dry, as 

 was also the beginning of June, after which a few 

 rainy days were again registered. Planting out in 

 the open ground from the nurseries was pushed on 

 as much as possible, when the state of the weather 

 was favorable. 



The dry Aveather had a beneficial influence on 

 the young plantations, this inllueuce was partic- 

 ularly noticeable on such plantations as had been 

 highly cultivated at the latter part of the wet 

 monsoon. TJ)e harvest of this year amounts to 

 fully 100,(100 Amsterdam pounds of bark, of which 

 85,10<5 pounds were sent to Batavia by the end 

 of the quarter. This harvest was almost exclus- 

 ively obtained by thinning out close plantations, 

 and consists chiefly of C. Ledgeriana. On the 15th 

 April fully half of the produce of the harvest of 

 1885 was disposed of by public sale at Amsterdam. 

 The gross proceeds amounted to l'JO,C0O guilders 

 (gulden) being an average price of ./' 0.79 per half 

 kilogram. The higliest prices were obtained for a 

 very fine lot of C. Calisaya bark in long quills 

 which fetched up to /'3'8('» per half kilogram. The 

 highest price offered at this sale for C. Ledgeriana 

 bark was /' 1-85 per half kilogram. The inquiry 

 respecting the influence of succirubra stems on the 

 bark of the Ledgeriana grafted thereon, is steadily 

 uursued. Thu reaull^ of the cliemJcal researches 

 29 



shall, if possible, be made known during the com- 

 ing quarter. 



The original Ledgerianas as well as the old 

 Succirubra plantations produced such an insigni- 

 ficant seed-harvest, that only a very few sales of 

 cinchona seed could be held, which produced a 

 gross result of / 552*75. The graft-plantations of 

 Tortasari promise in the course of the third 

 quarter an abundant harvest of valuable seed, 

 so that important sales will then be held. 



(Signed) Van R0:«unde, 



Director of the Government Cinchona Plantations. 

 Bendoeng, 5th July 1886. 



Report on the position of the Government 

 Cinchona Plantations in Java for the 2nd quarter 

 of 1886 :— 



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