July i, 1882.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



thereof whenever necessary. They shall also have 

 charge of the grading and cliissifying all type samples, 

 and shall be eatitled to collect for each set so graded 

 and classified five dollars. This board shall hear and 

 decide on all cases of appeal from rejectiim of coffee 

 on account of quality or condition, and their decision 

 shall be liTial in so' far as it affects any parties in 

 interest who may be represented in the examination 

 of the rejected coffee, or in the arbitration regarding 

 the same," for which they shall be paid by the party 

 in error fifteen cents per package. The by-laws pro- 

 vide a form of contract lor sales for future delivery. 



Coffee shall be receivable and deliverable in the city 

 of New York, south of t'ourteenth street, or within the 

 limits of the port of New York, only from or at 

 such warehouses as may be recommended by the beard 

 of supervisors, approved by the governing committee 

 and duly licensed, as provided in sec. 93, Nor shall 

 any delivery of cofJee upon contract for future delivery, 

 or to arrive be lawful, unless said delivery is from or 

 at a licensed warehouse, and, unless otherwise stipulated 

 prior to the sale of spot coffee, the buyer may demand 

 that the coffee purchased be delivered frcan or at a 

 licensed warehouse. 



Commission shall be charged and paid under all 

 circumstances, both upon the purchase and sale of 

 contracts for future delivery, and where a "turn" 

 involves two transactions, viz. : purchase and sale, a 

 commission will be charged on both, this rule being 

 equally applicable to extension or transfer of contracts 

 from one month to another. The rates of commission 

 shall be as follows : On packages of eight pounds gross 

 weight or over, eighty cents per package, and on pack- 

 ages below eighty pounds in gross weight four cents 

 per package, when the transaction is made for any 

 party not a member of this exchange. The minimum 

 rate to members of the exchanye shall be four cents 

 per package of under eighty pounds, gross weight, 

 except where one member merely buys or sells for 

 another, giving up his principal on the day of the 

 transaction and not receiving or delivering the coff.-e, 

 in which case the rate shall not be less than two cents 

 for the larger and one cent for the smaller of said 

 packages. 



Tlie constitution and by-laws are very elaborate and 

 provide carefully for the government of the Exchange 

 and the transaction of a great business. — New York 

 Commercial Bulletin, January 12th. — [The danger will 

 be that this " Coflee Exchange" will degenerate into 

 a "Ring."— Ed.] 



THE ORIGIN OF CUPREA BARK. 

 There appears in the Pharmaceuticul Journal an 

 elaborate paper by Josk' Triana, a name familiar to 

 those who have studied the literature of the cinchonas. 

 on "The Botanical Source of Cinchona Cuprea." 

 It appears that the cuprea bark, so named from 

 its coppery colour, is yielded by a group of plants 

 which stand midway between the true cinchonas and 

 the cascarillas. Triana and Karsten discovered some of 

 these plants, but Triaua, noticing botanical character- 

 istics whicb separated the plants from the cinchonas, 

 never thought of testing the bark for alkaloids. Indeed, 

 nn'il the introduction of this cuprea bark, many held 

 the opinion, that from no plant but the cinchonas 

 coulo alkaloids be obtained. But it is now found that 

 the bark from twospecies oiRemijia, growing plentifully 

 the one in the lower Cordillera of the Andes, vhich ex- 

 tends to the great plain of the Orinoco and the other iu 

 the valley of tlie Magdalena River, do yield alkaloids 

 although in small quantity. They grow at elevations 



of 700 to 3,500 feet, in situations warmer and drier 

 than those affected by the truecinchonns. We scarcely 

 see why Triana should suppoee that their discovery 

 and the fact that these bushes (for such they are) will 

 grow in dry warm localities are likely to affect eiu- 

 chona cultivation and the price of quinine very 

 greatly, for cuprea bark contains quinine only at the 

 rate of "0 to 2 per cent, and it appears that, as in the 

 case of cinchonas, "the alkaloids increase in proportion 

 as the trees approach nearer to the upper limit of their 

 vegetation and are better protected by the great forest." 

 That is, the higher the elevation, the better 

 the quality of the bark, so that the existence of 

 abundance of the plants at low elevations and their 

 capability of being cultivated in lower localities than 

 will suit the true cinchonas ueed not give those 

 interested in the cullivation of cinchonas the scare 

 v\hich Triana seems to think they ought to feel. The 

 effect of accumulations of this inferior bark in the 

 European markets has not been, as we were able to 

 point out recently, to lower the average price of good 

 cinchona bark, while Triana himself states that the 

 rush into the trade and the stoppage of sales result- 

 ing from excess have so operated that "the industry 

 which ought to prove a new source of riches for Co- 

 lumbia, has accidentally become a cause of financial 

 disaster." Agriculture had been neglected in the rush 

 to gather hark which is now unsaleable at remunerat- 

 ive prices. While we follow the advice of Mr. How- 

 ard and the other great quinine manufacturers by 

 growing the best species and varieties of cinchonas, 

 we do not think we need greatly fear the compet- 

 ition of cuprea bark, or of other barks in which a 

 bitter principle exists i r which may yield minute 

 quantitifs of alkaloids. For a time it appears a single 

 firm in Bucaramanga in the State of Santander (have 

 our readers ever heard of the place before?) kept the 

 secret and enjoyed the monopoly of the trade in the 

 bark of the Rnnijia plants. But the discovery, and 

 the consequent rush and the' overloading of the market, 

 were inevitable. A small portion of the cuprea barks 

 have yielded a new alkaloid called cinchonamiue, and 

 the peculiarity of euprtabarks gener.ally is that they yield 

 no cinchonidine. The bark which yields the new al- 

 kaloid lesembles that of caecarilla, so that the cin- 

 chonas which yield abundance of alkaloids ; the Be- 

 «ii/ifi.s which yield fmall quantities, and the eascarillas 

 which are so absolutely destitute of - alkaloids, are 

 "linked, each to each," by certain affinities: afresh 

 illustration of the difficulties of defining species 

 There are numerous plants belonging to the geuuB 

 Ecmijia, but the two species from which the eup- 

 plits of cuprea b'avk have hitherto been obtained are 

 Reiiiijia penduncvltita which Triana himself described 

 and named and Remijin Purdieann mimed after a 

 botanist called Purdie. The trees closely resemble 

 each other, and so do the barks, for Triana states : — 

 The resemblance between the barks of the two 

 species is al?o very great and it would be difficulty to 

 find characters sufficiently marked to distinguish 

 them. They nre both, in fact, hard, very compact 

 relatively heavy, the inner nirfiice snionth and more 

 or less of a wine-red tint, thi pidermis thin or more 

 or less c^rky, and striated lo ,itudiu:dly. The fract- 

 ure is not fibrous, as in many c .lohonas, 



