March r, 1883.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, 



771 



expected that Van Gorkom's sympathies would have cent- 

 ered in the quinine-producing yellow barks which are 

 for the moment most in favour. Tliis, however, is largely 

 due to the unreasonable importance whicli is attached to 

 quinine over other cinchona alkaloids. Van Gorkom does 

 not share this prejudice;^ 



" The conviction has more and more gained gi'onnd, that 

 good cinchona barks judiciously applied, frequently do not 

 merely rival quinine, but even surpass it in useful effect" 

 (p. 212). 



This point of \'iew is exceedingly important with regard to 

 red bark (0. siieciriilim), which is the easiest of all species to 

 cultivate. 



"There is no cinchona bark, richer in alkaloids, and though 

 C. SHceiritbra is not suitable for the preparation of quinine, 

 because it can only be ti'eated with ti'ouljle and much expense, 

 3'et it has a iireponderance of the secundary alkaloids. No 

 better material for pharmaceutical purposes is known, and on 

 that account its propagation is desii'able from every point of 

 view" (p. 100). 



High class yellow barks are by no means fi-ee in their 

 gro^vth or particularly easy of cultivation. It has been found 

 useful to graft them on sticciritbfa stocks, and the practice 

 has been adopted in Sikkim and Ceylon ; Van Gorkom gives 

 a useful account of the method adopted in Java. 



We must refrain from pursuing many other points which 

 these pages suggest. Two of the concluding chapters deal 

 with the possible synthesis of quinine and the commerce of 

 the barks. As to the former the author has little doubt of 

 success. Two isomerous bodies, chinoliue and cliinoleine, 

 are known, of which the foi-mer is obtaijied by the distillation 

 of coal tar, the latter by that of quinine. This is thought then 

 to be the clue by which the consbruction of quinine from coal- 

 tar products will be eventually achieved. But he takes 

 comfort for cinchona planters from two considerations. One 

 is that the syntliesis of a vegetable substance when effected 

 does not always result in its practical commercial replace- 

 ment. The .synthesis of alizarine it is found after all does 

 not give the dyer quite what the madder plant gives him. 

 Artihcial quinine then may — if ever produced — jirove only 

 of interest to the chemist. His other consolation is based on 

 what is said above — that phai-macy can never dispense with 

 the total aggregate extracted products of bark, and the day 

 may be regarded as indefinitely distant when the chemist 

 will be able to replace these any more than such complexes 

 as the contents of our tea and coffee-pots. 



A5 to commerce it is interesting to leani that London is the 

 most important market for bark, and Paris next. We fear, 

 however, from statistics obtained from another source, that 

 this country has no corresponding lead iu the production of 

 the manufactm'ed products, only about 10 per cent, of the 

 quinine of the world being made in England. Yet Van 

 Gorkom states emphatically that "the cousumiition at the 

 present day of cinchona and its alkaloids, merely represents 

 a paltry fraction of the quantity which will be requii-ed to 

 satisfy the prescription of humamty iu every country, and 

 among all classes and I'aces of men" (p. 230). 



We have left ourselves but little space to notice Prof. 

 Fluckiger's handy and concise work, which, though of im- 

 poj*tance to cinchona planters, is primarily a phannaceutical 

 study of the subject. The bark of Cinchona succiriihra has 

 been recently adopted as the official bark of the German 

 Pharmacopoeia — a fact of no small importance to planters in 

 British possessions, which it is remembered how enormous is 

 the exteut of its cultivation in their hands. It is this 

 fact which has won it its official status, as though poor 

 iu quinine its quality is tolerably unifonn, and being 

 easily grown its supply can always be depended on. Prof. 

 Fluckiger gives a figiu-e of the plant as well as of Cin- 

 chona Ledijcriana — the quinine bark par excellence — and of 

 Ttemijia fiedmicidaUi^ one of the sources of the Cinchona 

 caprea which has of late years been poured into Europ- 

 ean markets from South America. — Nature. 



CROPS AND S1<:AS0N in INDIA. 

 The reports on the state of the season and prospects 

 of the crops for the week ending 13tli Feliruary are 

 as follows : — There has been n'> rainlaU to report in 

 any part of the country, except in three districts of 

 the Madras Presid.'ncy, in two of the Bengal Presid- 

 eucy, and at ilibnighar in .issam ALjricuitur^xl pro- 

 spects continue generally good everywhere. .Vhuv rain 

 is, however, still ueened lu sojne diatiicts of llio Puu- 



jaub. In Sarun, iu the Bengal Presidency, the poppy 

 crop is said to have been almost entirely damayed 

 by the recent rains. Harvest operatioos are in progress 

 in the Central Provinces and in the Bombay and 

 Madras Prt.sidencie3. In Coorg the threshing of rice 

 and rahi crops still continues, and a slight rise in the 

 price of coffee in the local market is reported.— /'(omcv. 



♦ 



AoricultureinSodthIndia.— The total budget es- 

 timates of receipts and charges of the Madras Oovern- 

 nieut Farms and the .School of Agriculture at Saidaoet 

 for 188.S.84 are as follows :— 



Farms 



School of Agriculture 



Receipts. 



II 49,500 



200 



Charges, 



R 74,280 



24,500 



Total R 49,700 98,780 



Meroaua, 3rd Feb.— Everybody more or less con- 

 nected with king coffee has suffei-ed, and money is 

 difficult to be got. The cardamom crop was 50 per 

 cent short of the average. The rice (and straw) 

 crop was less than it li>is ever been before. And 

 cofl'ee completes the disaster. Cattle decimated in the 

 monsoon. And estate managers compelled to discharge 

 their labour, leaving pruning, weeding, and mauunug 

 undone. — j1/a(Z»-as Standard. 



Ci.NciioNA —A few days ago, Messrs. Oakes and 

 Co. offered for sale a quantity of cinchona bark 

 obtained from the Ooty plantations. About 25,0001b. 

 were offered and about 21,0001b. were sold at the 

 average of Rl-8 per lb., the chief purchasers being 

 Messrs. W. .J. Bales and Co. Messrs. Croysdale and 

 Co., Messrs. Schonlank Engel and Co, and Ur 

 Currie. Mr. Gass of the Forest Department watched 

 the sale on behalf of the Government. It is expected 

 that, there will be another side in the early part of 

 March when about 25.0001b. will be offered. For 

 this sales the sam|jles were submitted to buyers on 

 the 9th instant, and as the sale is to take place ou 

 5th and 7th March, purchasers will not have sufE-i- 

 eut time to send samples to Europe for analysis. 

 This system of selling cinchona hark in Madras has 

 proved very satisfactory, dealers are able to purchase 

 and try their chance in the English markets. Certain 

 German dealers who arrived at Madras in November 

 and December last, expressed a favourable opinion 



of the quality of the bark sold the other day 



Madras Standard 



New Products: Gampola, 15th Feb.— Tea must 

 be a paying investment, if what I hear about Maiia- 

 watte in Gampola is true, that this estate, which i- 

 six years old at the very most of 100 acres in exa 

 tent, gave last year .36,000 lb, of manufactured tea 

 and is likely to give at least 450 lb. per acre this year. 

 The sooner planters take to putting in tea amongst 

 their coffee, the better will it be for them as well 

 as for the colony. The money now spent in cattle 

 manure and the application of manure, might far 

 more profitably be expended in planting tea at least 

 in places where the coffee is in want of being con. 

 atantly miiuured. Correspondents to the newspapers 

 say that the cause of short crops is either leaf dis- 

 ease or rainy weather. If the weather bs favourable 

 for blossoming, loaf disease comes in and strips the 

 trees 01 their leaves, so that they caunot mature crop- 

 otherwise, the coffee is said to have never been more 

 free from disease, but unfortunately the season turns 

 out bad, and trees fail to mature wood for blossom. 

 Tea would therefore be a capital second strine to the 

 Rubber goes splendidly here, and I have trees 



bo 



planted iu April last fully IS feet high, with a good 

 crop of fruit on. Cocoa grons best in the sheltered 

 hollows ol rocky fields, better than in hollows with- 

 out any rock. Paddy crops are just bein« taken in, 

 and from all sides I hear that paddy seldom gave such 

 a good erop as this year. — "Examiner." 



