Fbb, 1, 1887.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



51^ 



the preparations used were very much of the type 

 of mummia, and were in fact the most loathsome 

 things that could be imagined. There were in India 

 some two thousand plants of a medicinal nature more 

 OP less used by the people, but not more than forty or 

 fifty were worth the least attention. It had been 

 said that many of the specimens in the India Court 

 were very imperfect, and no doubt they were ; many 

 were of no interest to anyone but the native doctors 

 who never by any chance used drugs until they were 

 eaten through and through with insects. They stored 

 them until they were perfectly rotten, and in many 

 cases it was impossible to get drugs in any other 

 way than by going to these people. He had forgotten 

 to mention one or two facts with regard to ganja. 

 It was made from the female flower-heads of the 

 plant, and it was a most remarkable thing that if 

 you left one single male flower in a whole field cul- 

 tivated for ganja not a single particle would be produced. 

 The bhang was obtained entirely from the wild plant, 

 but ganja could not be made from it because in that 

 state the male plants grew with the female ; of course 

 by male and female he meai t plants with pistillate 

 and staminate flowers. Long before the flowers were 

 produced the native ganja doctor came round to the 

 cultivator, and having agreed on his fee, crawled away 

 underneath the tiny little plants, and with a knife 

 slipped every male plant out of the field. He had often 

 followed the ganja doctor, though without being able to 

 discover, even with a microscope, how he distinguished 

 the plants, but it was marvellous how successful he was, 

 and it was rarely necessary to go after him to remove a 

 male plant. The female plants were allowed to reach 

 maturity, when they were cut down and taken to the 

 ma^iufdctory, where they were trodden under foot 

 to produce the flat and round forms. The earth 

 was hollowed out and the plants were all laid 

 with their heads in the hollow and rolled with 

 the feet ; he believed that in some way the rolling 

 shook out something in the round form which made it 

 much stronger than the flat ; it was more condensed, 

 and a given weight contained more of the extract. Mr. 

 H olmes had referred to pale catechu, meaning he sup- 

 posed, gambler, which was eaten all over India; but 

 t here was another substance which was also used, real 

 pale catechu, or acacia catechu. They had also a form 

 of cutch which was quite as pale as that shown obtained 

 from the acacia catechu, and that also was more exten- 

 sively eaten than that exhibited. The red cutch was never 

 eaten at all. He did not know exactly the chemical 

 difference, not having examined them with sufficient 

 accuracy to determine, but there was a difference, and 

 the process of preparing the two kinds was quite 

 different. In Pegu the tree was cut down, the bark 

 removed and the hard wood split up into little 

 fragments ; these were put into large iron caldrons 

 and boiled down until a thick decoction was obtained ; 

 this was then thrown into moulds made of the teak 

 wood leaf and allowed to harden. A layer of leaves 

 was put over the top and another coating thrown 

 on, and thus the ordinary red cutch was obtained. In 

 Northern India, another preparation was made. The 

 plaijt was treated in the same way, but it was boiled 

 in earthen caldrons and to about one half the extent ; 

 the pots were then taken off the fire and a number of 

 twigs put into each, on which the substance crystallized 

 much in the same way as sugar candy on a thread. The 

 twigs were then removed, the crystals shaken off, again 

 put into hot water and made into a sort of mucilage ; it 

 was then thrown into moulds and made into cakes like 

 gambler, only larger. This was a more carefully prepared 

 article. The pale cutch of Northern India was in fact 

 very much like gambler and took the same place in 

 pharmacy and as an article of food. Cardamoms were 

 also largely grown in India. The seeds of melons were 

 also used for making oils to a large extent, and so were 

 tea seeds. With reference to the gums, he might say 

 there was a resin in India which was used for a curious 

 purpose. It was from the Shorea rohtsta, known as the 

 saal tree, and was extensively used for soldering broken | 

 pots. Any metal pot that got cracked was joined to- 

 gether again with saal resin, and he had seen such vessels 

 in use on a roaring fire years after they had been mended 



in this way. He should think this resin was worthy of 

 attention. 



Mr. BosiSTO, President of the Victorian Commission, 

 said:— It would take too much time to mention all 

 the medicinal plants of Australia, but it bad not 

 such a grand field of medical products as India and 

 some other countries. There were the eucalypti, a 

 number of acacias, and some melaleucas, particularly 

 the M. Leucadendron, which gave an oil resembling 

 cajuput oil. There were also a great many whic^ 

 yielded aromatizing oils, but he did not think they 

 were of any great value in commerce. Then there 

 was the Atherosperma moschatum bark, in common 

 language called the native sassafras bark, but it was 

 ■not a sassafras. It contained a very fine bitter, and 

 also a^ volatile oil of high specific gravity, two drops 

 of which would almost stay the action of the heart, 

 and this was well worth attention, and should be 

 brought before the medical men of Great Britain. Many 

 years ago he brought it under the notice of some of 

 the leading medical men in this country, who reported 

 well of its action on diseases of the heart, but it 

 seemed to have been lost sight of again. There were 

 150 species of Eucalyptus, which yielded a vast variety 

 of essential oils that contained many aromas, more 

 particularly one, a native of Queensland, and which was 

 also grown in Victoria, E. citriodora. He thought if the 

 colonists would pay more attention to it, it would yield 

 a good profit. There were many other aromas, but they 

 were too far away from population to be brought into 

 commerce. People in England would always speak prin- 

 cipally of the E. globulus, but the fact was that was 

 considered in Australia to be the worst of the whole 

 lot. E. dumost and E. amygdcdina were the chief species 

 of value for medicinal purposes. He had had the plea- 

 sure of presenting to the Society some essential oils of 

 the ordour, Myrtaecm which he guaranteed were true 

 to species, and therefore when any of the young men 

 present examined them he hoped they would pay 

 attention to the labels, and not look upon them all 

 as E. (/lobulus. 



Mr. Shand, Oflacial Representative of the Ceylon 

 Planters' Association, said he was not a scientific man, 

 but a practical agriculturist, and the drug in which he was 

 principally interested as a producer was cinchona bark. 

 He wished the honorable representatives from "West 

 Africa and British Guiana, who laid stress on the utility 

 of this bark, could, without any prejudice to themselves, 

 consume a great deal more of it, because so much was 

 now produced in Ceylon that the markets of the world 

 were completely glutted. Cinchona seed was first 

 brought into Ceylon in 1861 as an experiment, and fortu- 

 nately it fell into the hands of an excellent scientific 

 man, the late Dr. Thwaites, head of the Royal Botanic 

 Garrlens, who from the first recognized the adaptation 

 of the plant to Ceylon, and urged on the planters the 

 desirability of cultivating it. They were all so wedded to 

 coffee at that time that to a great extent they neglected 

 this matter, and for several ye^irs the cinchona culti- 

 vation was only carried on experimentally. In the years 

 1874 and 1875 they exported 4,000 lb. of bark, and in the 

 two following years only 15,000 or 16,000 lb. ; what led to 

 the great rush of cinchona cultivation was a little enter- 

 prise with which he himself was connected. In 1874 he 

 was manager of a group of estates, a small portion of 

 which had been accidentally, devoted to cinchona for the 

 following reason. In Ceylon they suffered periodically 

 from the ravages of rats. There was a jungle tree, the 

 nelu, which periodically died down, and when it did so 

 the rats which had been in the habit of feeding on the 

 pith came into the clearings and attacked the coffee. 

 Almost the first cultivation of cinchona in Ceylon was on 

 a small plot of about two and a half acres where the coffee 

 had been completely spoilt by the ravages of rats. 

 In 1874 the cinchona trees were eight years old, and it 

 fell to his lot to harvest it. The result was most wonder- 

 ful ; from that two and a half acres he reaped 15,000 lb, 

 of good cinchona bark. Not much was known then about 

 the preparation of it, and the only process they knew 

 that was likely to render it marketable was the quilling 

 process, which had now to a great extent been super- 

 seded. He took great pains in that matter, geiting cin. 

 namon peelers, who formed a special caste in Oeylon, an d 



