77° 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[March i, 1883. 



CINCHONA PLANTING. 



A Handbook of Cinchona CiiUiirr. By Kaiel Wcssel vau 

 Gorkom. Translated by Beujamiu Daydon Jackson, Sec. 

 L.S. (Loudon: Trubner, 188:3.) 



Die CliiHariiiden in FJini;iiakot//iost.isL/ier Hinsicht dargesielU. 

 Von r. A. Fluckiger. (Berlin: E. Gaertner, 18S3.) 



The rapid extension of cinchona planting in India, 

 Ceylon, and Jamaica will make a translation of Van 

 Gorkoin's accoimt of the methods of cultivation and har- 

 vesting pursued by him, as Dueetor of the cinchona 

 plantations belonging to the Dutch Govenunent m Java, 

 useful to many who propose to tm-u their attention to this 

 profitable industiy. At present intending planters in British 

 possessions have had Uttlc beyond Dr. King's Manual of 

 Cinchona Cultivation (1876) to serve as a guide. In Cey- 

 lon the planting coimnunity includes many men of first- 

 rate ablity, and the singularly energetic journaUsm of the 

 island speedly ventilates for the common good any fresh 

 idea or point of jn-actice in planting procedure. IncUau 

 planters share the benefit of this, wliile Jamaica has the 

 advantage of possessing in Mr. Moixis, a dii-ector of its 

 botanical department, who has earned to the West Indies 

 an intimate knowledge of all that is bemg done m Ceylon. 

 It is not very probable that those who are at present 

 occupied iu cinchona enteiinise in British possessions will 

 glean much from Van Gorkom's book. Still such a manual 

 will not be without its use for those who have every- 

 thing to learn about the matter, and, as wiU be seen, 

 it cannot fail to be interestiug to those who watch from 

 an independent point of view the economics of the subject. 



The book is handsomely printed and got up— too hand- 

 somely indeed, for workmanhke use, for which its size, 

 that of a .small folio, seems particularly imsuited. We 

 must too make a serious protest as to the style of the 

 translation, which, we tliink, cannot be considered toler- 

 able even with every allowance for "seeming melegancies 

 which Mr. Jackson pleads for in liis preface. Take, as a 

 sample, the first sentence which caught oui- eye:— 



"If we trust that this excellent oppoi-tunity for triut- 

 ful comparisons shall lead to unfettered judgement, still 

 more do we look for, from the impressions received and 

 the eularced field of view, the scientific work carried on, 

 which has so long been in hand, and most certainly with 

 gi-eat completeness and undisputed knowledge of matenal 

 mil indicate our present standpoint m the domam of 



''"now II is qidte"certaiu that tlds is not EugUsh, and we 

 have some doubts whether it really conveys any meaning at 

 all But at any rate we would ask what is the use of trans- 

 lating in this way a work the purpose of which is not literary 

 but cssentiallv utiUtarian. There seems, in fact, to be a deep- 

 ror.tr, I sui.'rstition about the value of socalled fidehty m trans- 

 latui" books of mere infomiation. In rendenng a foreign 

 language as a philological imdertaking, it is often desu-able 

 to saci-iflce, to some extent, style and f onii, m order to convey 

 as nearly as may be, the exact force of each word and ot each 

 turn of expression. But where, as iu a techmcal treatise, it 

 is only the context we care about, it is exasperatmg to find 

 the translator exhibiting a would-be scholarly care over the 

 exact reproduction of the vehicle. All we want hnn to do is 

 to master the meaning and give it to us ni clear, straighttor- 

 ward English. .... • t 4. 



Having said so much by way ot cnticism we may mcUcate 

 a few points which we think will be interesting even to some 

 who are not colonial readers of ^:ltl<,■c. A hundred ot the 

 three huncb-ed pages of which the volume consists is given up 

 to historical matter regarding the history of tuichoHa and the 

 development of its cultiu-e iu Java and m British possessions. 

 All this is an oft told tale, and contams bttle that will uot be 

 found in Mr. Mcirkham'sPeruvian Bark (reviewed miyaUire, 

 vol xxiii pp 189-101). An exception must be made, how- 

 ever as to the interesting account of the comiuenranient of 

 cinchona cultivation in BoUvia. The existence ot tins euter- 

 nrise was known, but we have not met with any previous 

 account of it. The Dutch Consul-Geueral reported to his 



Government: — . . m r ■ • 4i„ 



"The "rcat event in the agricultural region of r,c.Uvia is llie 

 plauting^of the BoUvian cinchona forests, of which an u:irucst 

 begiiming was made in 1878. . . . The nverMap.n, n, the 

 province of Larecaja, department La Paz, has been the centre 

 of the movement, and akeady the young trees of two years 

 growth may be reckoned at from four to five bimdred thous- 



'^"douM is,' however, expressed whether the i^hmting miX be 



maintained iu the face of labour difficulties and a possible 

 fall of prices in consecjuence of increasing exports from the 

 East Indies. 



Modern cinchona enterprise iu Java has aimed at the pro- 

 duction of barks rich in quiuine. With the lucky jiurchase 

 from Mr. Ledger in 186.5 of a packet of seeds of the now well- 

 known Cinehoiiii Lcdijeriuna, the Dutch "cinchona culture of 

 the future has entered upon an entirely new phase" (j). 77). 

 About 20,000 of the seeds genninated in Java, and first and 

 last Mr. Ledger received about '21/, from the Dutch Govern- 

 ment, and " was therewith well content" (p. 91). Fort- 

 unately the greater part of the seed originally imported was 

 pui'chased by a well-kuo^Mi Indian planter, Mr. Money, and 

 some of it seems by private channels to have found its way 

 to the Government plantations in Sikkim. TheDutch having 

 got this valuable kind seem to have managed it with extra- 

 ordinary intelligence and skill. Men Uke de Vrij, Moens, and 

 Van Gorkom were well-trained European scientific men 

 and competent chemists. Then' object was by con- 

 tinuous selection, controlled by repeated analyses of bark 

 made on the spot to obtain races of Cinchona Lrdt/eriana 

 richer and richer in quinine, and it is a matter of gen- 

 eral notoriety how well they have succeeded.*' It is the 

 part of Van' Gorkom's treatise dealing with this matter 

 which cinchona planters "will be grateful to Mr. Jackson 

 for putting within then- reach. Two conditions of suc- 

 cess in harvesting good seed are insisted upon. 



" For seed saving, the handsomest sti-ongest trees are 

 selected, and especially amongst those whose superior value 

 has been ascertained by chemical examination. Disap- 

 pointmeut is inevitable where the eye and botanical char- 

 acters alone are made use of and trusted to ; the irhole 

 issice depends apon the certainti/ that varieties rich in quinine 

 are e:vc/nsire/i/ propagated. 



" The choice being made there is something else which 

 must uot be neglected ; it futher behoves us to be per- 

 fectly sure that the tree is not fertilised with foreign 

 poUeu, that is to say, pollen of an inferior ti'ee or variety" 

 (p. 136). 



The last condition cannot be insisted upon too forc- 

 ibly, notwithstanding that competent botanical opinion can 

 be quoted against it. In their home in South America the 

 different species of Cinchona are localised at diiferent points 

 of the Andine chain. Geogi'aphical isolation keejjs them 

 uncrossed. But where they are brought together in one 

 plantation they hybridise freely. Cinciiona roliasta, which 

 is now widely diffused in India, undoubtedly first origin- 

 ated in Ceylon as a cross between C. officinalis and V. 

 sHCcirnhra. 



The aim of the Dutch Government being to produce 

 a commercial bark of high quinine -producing quality, in 

 which they have met with extraordinary success. Van 

 Gorkom is somewhat disposed to criticise the different 

 policy which has been pursued iu British India : — 



" "Tlie Bengal Government . . . makes its cinchona 

 culture serviceable before all tluugs to the wants of its 

 population, and thus only asks itself, how the peoiile and 

 army may be proWded with febrifuges on the most ad- 

 vantageous terms" (p. 229). 



He sets against this the " well-known fact that not 

 one half of ' the alkaloids possessed by by the raw mater- 

 ial are obtained, the greater part beiug lost." Even 

 supposing, however, that things are as bad as tliis, and 

 uot susceptible of improvement, it is still arguable whe- 

 ther, looking at the cheapness with which red bark can 

 be grown and converted into a febrifuge—the usef uluess 

 of which is incalculable— the theoretical waste is a matter 

 for the present of much consequence. But it is um'eason- 

 able to suppose that the Bengal methods of extraction 

 are uot susceptible of improvement, though they will 

 jn-obably never reach the .standard practicable by more 

 expensive methods iu Europe. But the objection ot waste- 

 fulness must be measiu-ed by the cii'cumstances. The 

 proprietor of an estate in England who, wiUi a view of 

 bringing a portion of liis park into tillage, began by 

 burniug the timber upon it, would be cousidered a mad- 

 man. But this is habitually done in clearing a piece of 

 tropical forest for ndtivatiou, and as it is not easy to 

 see what else could lie done, a complaint as to the waste 

 would not be much to the purpose. It might have beeu 



* Ackuowledg-ment must be made of the striking liber- 

 ality mth which the Dutch Government officials have 

 always placed what they could .spare of then selected 

 seed at the disposal of phinteis in other countries. 



