April 2, 1883.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



811 



Bambusa Brandisii (Munro). — Nativeof the Tenasserim 

 division in British Burmah. The stem is 120 feet high, 

 two feet in circumference, hollow, but pretty thick in the 

 pith, strong and durable. It is spineless. 



ChuAqnea loi'entziana (Grisebach). — Sub-tropic Argentina 

 in South America is the native habitat of this bamboo. It is 

 not lofty, only 31) feet high, but is solid, very strong and 

 dm-able, and affords much material for manufacture of many 

 bamboo things; is also excellent for buildings. 



THE ACTION OF MANURES ON FRUITS. 

 Cultivated plants are the inheritors of whatever benefits or 

 may have derived from their predecessors. The tiling is dis- 

 advantages they ob\'ious enough to those who look on plants 

 from an evolutionist's point of \-iew; and thepractical outcome 

 is that, e.\cept under special cu-cumstances, or for some special 

 purpose, it is best, in our atteniptsto improve upon what we 

 have got, to deal with a plant that has been in cultivation for 

 a long time, and so avail ourselves of its stored-up inheritance. 

 It would be a long uphill work to start afresh with the crab 

 or wild pear, for instance, although for the sake of getting a 

 new "break'' or more robustness of constitution it may be 

 desirable sometimes to begin again at the beginning, or at 

 least to infuse some less conventionalised blood into our 

 plants, if we may so speak. A cm-ious illustration of the 

 contrast between the wild and the ci\*ilised condition is af- 

 forded in Professor Goessman's paper on "Mineral Con- 

 stituents in Plant Growth," in the Transactiuiis of the 

 Mdssnchtisetti HoiticvHund Sucidi/. The Professor has been 

 experimenting on the diiference in chemical composition be- 

 tween \'ines unmanured and \dnes manured. In the course 

 of his experiments he analysed the juice of a wild vine (viih 

 lahrifsca) grown without manure. And the juice of the same 

 vine when treated with manure. At one bomid the sugar 

 rose from 8'22 per cent in the wilding without manm*e, to 

 13'67 per cent in the same wilduig appropriately fed. This 

 shows the advantage of the manm'e. But now, looking, to 

 the analysis of the cultivated variety (Concoi'd), we find that 

 in its juice, even when mimanui-ed, the sugar amounted to 

 13"89 per cent, so that the cultivated variety, without manure 

 at all, yielded a larger percentage of sugar than did the wild 

 form with ample manure. The increase of sugar is coinci- 

 dent with a large increase of potash, and a largely diminished 

 proportion of lime. In the case of strawberries the wild lui- 

 manured variety contains much less potash, much more lime, 

 much less magnesia, much more iron, and jlbout the same 

 percentage of phosphoric acid as the cidtivated and manured 

 variety. The mid strawberry, moreover, contains one part 

 of acid two to of sugar, while in the cultivated varieties the 

 proportion of acid is one to four or more of sugar. — Indian 

 Aiji-icultiu'ist. 



CINCHONA CULTURE. 



We gave, in our last, a very brief notice of Van Gorkom's 

 Handbook on Cinchona Culture, as translated by Mr. B. D. 

 Jackson, of the Linnjean Society, but the work is of .so much 

 practical importance to a large section of our readers that no 

 apology will be needed for reciu-ring to it at greater length. 

 The Dutch claun to have successfully introduced the cinchona 

 plant into .Java, in 185i, whereas it was not till 1859 that 

 Mr. Clements Markham brought it from Peru to India. (Com- 

 paratively little progress was, however, made with the cult- 

 ivation in Java before Hans Van Gorkom took charge of the 

 government garden there, in 1864. and to him really belongs 

 the credit of ha\'ing successfully estabUshed the industry 

 there. He found, upon arrival, that the seedUngs imported 

 were chiefly the inferior species of cinchona. ('. P<ihudiana 

 (('. Ovata), of which 531.456 were at the end of 1863. under 

 cultivation in the open ground, while the plantation only con- 

 tained 7.498 calisaya plants. But in 1864 the cultivation of 

 C. Paht'diana was restricted and special attention given to 

 the more valuable species of C. Ca'i.sai/a, and the success of 

 the plantations was assured by the planting out m 1866 of 

 12.00<) young Ledger plants that had been raised from seed 

 obtained from Mr. Ledger in 1865. Since 1872 ('. Ledyeriann, 

 ('. Offjii nuns And ('. Sued riflu-a have been exclusively pro- 

 pagated, with the result that in 1880 the jjlantations contained 

 498,0(K1 ledgeriana, 401,000 offieinaUs, and 278,000 succu:ubra 

 plants. 



Under the head of "Chemical Investigation" we find a 

 short account of the cinchona alkaloids, and the result of 



Moens' analyses of the three species under cultivation, whence 

 it appears that in 1879 — 



Net weight 

 Total alkaloids. Quinine. of bark 

 ^ , ™i°- max. min. max. in A kilos. 



Ledgermagave 6-1 8-1 60 70 7 850 



OffieinaUs „ 53 68 1-2 4-G 3,365 



Succuubra „ 60 80 0-8 09 25,201 



In 1878 Moems showed by an analysis of the outside serap- 

 mgs or sharaigs of Ledgeriana, that the old method of the 

 cascarUleors, which consisted in ilepri\-ing the thick branches 

 of their epidermis, was a co.stly operation, for in the samples 

 of sha\'ings he found 9-5 and 7-5 per cent, total alkaloid, con- 

 tainmg 83 and 67 per cent, quinine respectively. 



By the scraping process Moens and Scheffer ascertiiined 

 that a kilogram of superior bark could be obtained annually 

 from each tree ; the author considers, moreover, that scrap- 

 ing might be done once or even many times with good results, 

 l)ut skill is required to prevent injm-y to the tree. 



In .Tava, as it is now found in Ceylon, no variety of chin- 

 chona can be cidtivated with better prospects of speedy and 

 ample production than the succirubra; but the author is of 

 opinion that so long as quinine is of primary importance, 

 there can be no satisfaction in the exclusive cultivation of the 

 succirubra. 



The amount of alkaloids in the bark does not regularly 

 increase with the age of the tree, and in normally developed 

 trees, the maxunum amount of alkaloids wiU be in trees from 

 six to eight years old. The author does not regard the proce.ss 

 of renewing under moss to be applicable to inferior kinds of 

 cinchona; as is now well known, its effect on succirubra is to 

 increase the yield of quinine and to decrease the cinchoui- 

 dine, and on offieinaUs to suppress in most cases cinchonidine 

 entirely. 



In chapter XL the artificial propagation by cuttings, with 

 a description of Venleman's method of side grafting Ledge- 

 riana on succirubra stems, which was fii-st carried out in 1879. 

 On this point we read, "For .scions young twigs of Ledgeriana 

 trees are t<aken, those with one joint are large enough, though 

 as there are no reasons for extraordinary economv it is better 

 to use tops of branches with two or thi-ee joints. " The woody 

 stem of a yoimg succirubra plant .serves as a stock, preferably 

 a seedUng, because cuttings usuaUy possess a less developed 

 root .system. Succirubra stems as thick as a lead pencil offer 

 sufficient surface; stronger stems may perhaps supply more 

 nutriment to the scions, but it is an advantage on the other 

 side that the diameter of stock and scion should agree, that 

 the opposed barks may be united as completely as possible." 



The best results are expected from this method, and it has 

 the further advantage of requiring no propagating houses, 

 and of being applicable after cropping an inferior cinchona 

 pKantation. — Planters' Gazette. 



New Products in Lowee Hapdtale, Cevlox (about 

 1500 Feet above Sea-level). — Cocoas are growing very fast 

 — 12 months in the ground, 4 ft. 6 in. to 5 ft. ui height. Li- 

 berian coffee too is gi-owing very fast before it began to grow 

 but, once it started, it came away and soon threw out 

 primai-ies. I am cominced though, that thick shade, even 

 in our hot chy climate, is a mi.stake. Liberian coffee 

 simply glories in the sun-Ught, and seems to grow better 

 in dry weather than in wet. 1 have tried plam nuts 

 but although those that germinated are alive, that is 

 about -all that can be .said for them. Ledgers at 1 ■''OO 

 feet above sea level are growing very fast, in fine loamy 

 soU. AVhite ants play great havoc amongst the young 

 cocoas, when first planted out. I have tried chopped 

 aloes, placed rounil the plants both below and above the 

 surface, and have been very successful in keeping off the 

 enemies. The aloe soon rots, especially below the sur- 

 face in showery weather, and the ants don't like the 

 smeU it gives out .so keep away. Chopped aloes fermen- 

 ted for a week or ten days will keep any insect away 

 from mu-series, and is also calculated to jjoi.son any one 

 who goes too close, too often. I am going to try car- 

 damoms next year. I have found the wild kind in' sever 

 al places about our low jungles. Calisayas too are in 

 our nursenes for future planting. I tried some Nalka- 

 naad coffee, but have a good mind to pull it aU liu 

 again, as it has been attached most virulently by leaf 

 disease, and the plants worst attacked are those still in 



