156 REPORT ON THE CULTIVATION OF CHINCHONA IN BENGAL, 
last year. I shall follow the arrangement of the report of last year, 
and shall consider the plants in their different stages of growth. 
Stock Plants.—These plants, which are all grown under glass panes, 
are in excellent condition, and, notwithstanding the vast amount of 
cuttings they have yielded, their vigour has increased during the 
year. 
Seedlings.—A quantity of excellent seedlings of C. officinalis, aud a 
very few of C. succirubra, were reared from seed yielded by the plants 
planted at Rungbee in October, 1864. Besides these, I received 
during the year several packets of seed of C. officinalis and of C. succi- 
rubra from Mr. Thwaites, the director of the Botanical Gardens, 
Ceylon. The number of seedlings raised during the year amounted 
to 101,750. The number of seedlings obtained during the previous 
year was 38,500, 
Nursery Beds.—Large additions were made to the nursery beds. 
Most of the plants in these beds remained unprotected throughout 
the winter. 
Permanent Plantations.— The formation of the open-air plantations, 
and the tending of the plants in them, are the simplest parts of the 
cultivation of Chinchona as practised at Darjeeling. As the process of 
planting followed by me at Darjeeling has not yet been fully stated in 
any of my previous reports, the time has now arrived for narrating the 
various stages of the open-air cultivation, from the clearance of the 
forest-covered land until the end of the second year of the growth of 
the plants. Hitherto, the land selected has consisted of ground on 
which Lepchas had previously carried on the cultivation of Maize, 
Millets, and Rice (a peculiar variety, which is grown without being 
irrigated) in the manner known as joom* cultivation, with patches of 
virgin forest occurring every here and there among the partially-cleared 
spaces, 
Nepalese coolies with their kookais (short, heavy, curved knives), 
and Lepchas, with their long, straight, sword-like knives, are sent to 
fell the jungle as close to the ground as possible. 
# Joom cultivation is the term used to designate the rude cultivation prac- 
tised rr most of the hill tribes of India. It consists of felling and burn 
cal fter "1 
abandoned for a pach a atch of forest. The piece aban doned soon 
vered with a dise: end s oabi gigantic grasses, and young 
in 
