Dec. I, 1886. 1 



THE TROPICAL AGHICULTURIST. 



3yy 



Lots. 



CINCHONA BARK. 



(FrvM I- A. Buclei- and Beiin-rft's HVtA/;/ Prio' 

 Current.) 

 The last Eark sales went agaiu iu favour of sell- 

 ers, aud the unit may now bo quoted at 3Jd to 3id. 

 Only 1,470 bales of Oeylon were offered, of which 

 the bulk Bold. 156 bales Java, direct import also 

 all sold. Some of our readers may remember that 

 iu a recent circular we implied that at the September 

 Dutch Bark sale. Barks were sold far and away 

 cheaper than anything done in our London market, 

 and we suggested that such a result must be 

 additionally aggravating to the owners of the Java 

 shipments, considering that the tone of our market 

 was firm : the London sale shortly after the Dutch 

 sale having given results slightly better than those 

 of the London sale shortly before the Duch sale. 

 \Ve believe our facts to be correct, and the deductions 

 drawn from them to be reasonable. Mr. Wischerhoff, 

 a Rotterdam Drug broker, disagrees with us, and 

 has written a rather lengthy pamphlet, which has 

 reached us through the post, the receipt of which 

 we take this opportunity of acknowledging with 

 thanks. The basis of Mr. Wischerhoff's argument 

 Bsems to be the following table, giving the results 

 of the sale of 283 bales of Ledgeriana, on the 29th 

 of September : — 



Sulphate Price per 

 ofQuinme. h kilo. 



cents. cents. 



61 therefore per unit 15.00 



13.37 

 35.00 

 17.27 

 18.83 

 18.10 

 14.37 

 39.58 



16.70 



or on an average fully 20* cents per unit. Of course, 

 we may conclude that all these Barks were of a 

 manufacturing quality, as, if Druggist's Barks were 

 amongst them, Mr. Wischerhoff would not have felt 

 justified in including them iu his average. But the 

 deductions drawn from such tests are of no com- 

 mercial value. In Holland, either through erroneous 

 testing, or through bad sampling, they appear to 

 sell manufacturing Barks on one and the same 

 day at 13 cents, and at 39 cents per unit. 

 Mr. Wischerhoff, however, honourably acknow- 

 ledges that the prices of Lots 13 to 17 and 43 to 

 47, are not comprehensible on the surface, and as, 

 iu a commercial argument, we prefer dealing \vith 

 the comprehensible, not with the incomprehensible 

 we have figured out the above table leaving out 

 these two acknowledged doubtful lots, the result 

 being that the unit value was 16i cents, not 20* 

 cents. All this, however, to our mind, goes for 

 nothing. The question as to whether London or 

 Amsterdam is the better Bark market, a question 

 which some interests attempt to wrap up in ob- 

 ncurity, is really a remarkably simple one, and is 

 solved by the large buyers whenever sales take 

 place in Holland. Planters have and can again 

 I'Are the question for themselves, but even they 

 cannot know the rights of the whole question as 

 easily and as completely as those who buy freely in 

 both' places. We ebould hardly have ventured to as- 

 sert that the nett results of the last Dutch Bark 

 aale were so very unsatisfactory, unless we had had 

 high and unbiassed authority behind us. Growers 

 and shippers of Bark in Java are no doubt fully 

 aware that a Dutch Drug Broker would like to see 

 Java shipments setting towards Holland, and that 

 an English Bark Broker, on the contrary, would 

 prefer to see his market getthig the preference. As 

 ineu of the world, therefore, we kuow that our oni- 

 niou on this matter would carry but little weiglit, 

 first, because we are biassed ; second, because we 

 ourselves have no means of getting properly drawn 

 Dutch samples, if we had we could satisfy our own 

 mindri, by employing our own chemists, but Dutch firms 



5V'ould tUak iks tiial a doubtful oun. Bnyexs, Uov.- 



ever, we think are to all intents and purposes uu- 

 biasaed, indeed, if biassed at all, it would be to-; 

 wards the cheaper market. All Barks offered and 

 sold daring the year in London and Holland are 

 analysed by the buyer who is the authority for 

 our statement. The same chemists in the same 

 laboratory work out the results for him, and as he 

 is one of the largest, at the present date we be- 

 lieve the largest buyer of Bark in the world, we 

 imagine his opinion will carry weight and practic- 

 ally decide this vexed question. He endorses every 

 word we have said as to the superiority of this 

 market. In addition to this we know that another 

 large buyer interviewed him on this subject, iu order 

 to compare results, and that it was mutually agreed 

 between them that far and away the cheapest Bark 

 sold this year was at the last sale in Holland. 

 Again, we" have put the question to another large 

 buyer, a gentleman whose firm's name is a house- 

 hold word in the Birk trade, and he assures us 

 that there is no doubt about the matter, and that 

 the causes are not far to seek. We believe we are. 

 correct when we state that the representatives 

 of the two former gentlemen bought between them 

 about three-fourths of the whole Dutch sale. We, 

 therefore, witli every apology to Mr. Wischerhoff', 

 must perist in dogmatically asserting that his ques- 

 tion is answered as far as results go, Java- Cin- 

 chona, Holland or London':' London. Only a short 

 time ago, as Java planters must by this time be 

 fully aware, a consignment of 200 bales of Java Bark 

 was most carefully bulked and divided, half going 

 to Holland, half to London. The shippers made a 

 bona fide attempt to solve the question of markets 

 for themselves, the result being that their experi- 

 ment cost them £120, the 100 bales sold iu Holland, 

 realizing £120 less money than the 100 bales sold 

 in London. It is on the opinions of high class 

 merchants, and on facts such as the latter, that we 

 venture, to use Mr. Wischerhoff's own w»rd3, to offer 

 our persevering, benevolent, and sympathizing counsels 

 to those shippers who still doubt which is the better 

 market. As we are short of time, we will only add 

 that we disagree altogether with Mr. Wischerhoff's 

 remarks about sampling : according to him, the more 

 faulty the samples, the more they vary one with 

 another, the more unrepresentative they are of the 

 bulks, the better the competition and the more satis- 

 factory the result. We, on our part, like to know that 

 what a buyer thinks he has bought, he has really got. 

 aud such is the result of London sampling. 



CINCHONA BARK ANALYSES. 

 We have been favoured with a copy of a Circular - 

 report by Mr, T. R. Visey of the Analytical Labo- 

 ratory, Ilford, which contains certain curious in- 

 formation worthy of the attention of our Ceylon 

 planters. The correspondent who is good enough 

 to send the circular, says, " the charges made against 

 analysts generally are severe " ; but unfortunately 

 there is so much that smacks of sjelf-advevtisiuy 

 about Bome paragraphs that we can scarcely give 

 so much weight as -we otherwise should to all 

 that is said. However, our readers can judge for 

 themselves ; here is the report ; — 

 CLSiCHONA BARK, 



ANALVriCAI. L.iHORATOliV HlOH Sl'HEtiT. ItlOliP. 



Essex, October, 18S6. — The Ceylon Crop for ls.>^5-8, 

 having ]ust closed, ancl New Season commenced 

 affords a fitting opportunity to glance at the general 

 position Concerning the future it is a certain fact 

 that the Crop of Java Bark will be heavier and pro- 

 bably include a larger quantity of fine quality. The 

 export from East India will also show increase, but 

 to what extent, depends materially upon the decision 

 of the owners whether tliey will cut their Bark at 

 preeut rates ; from a private source I hear there is 

 an inclination on the part of some owners not to 

 Harvost at Pieseiit, but ^^ ait u Ijttlc iu Lope oi better 



