CHINCHONA CULTIVATION IN INDIA. 39 
1860, and feeling a difficulty in forming a correct opinion, owing to his 
inexperience of this climate, he requested my aid in the matter, While 
inthe Andes, Mr. Markham noted with great minuteness the various 
influences affecting the growth of the Chinchonas; these observations 
were placed. in, my. hands, which, combined with a long personal inter- 
course, enabled us fairly and impartially to discuss the altered condi- 
tions of our climate, and. the consequent modifications required to be 
. possessed by the sites we selected, in order to secure success. It was 
felt at the time that much would have to be developed by practical ex- 
perience ; and so far as our operations have progressed, the correctness 
of the opinions originally formed by Mr. Markham has been faithfully 
developed. 
“In the system of cultivation pursued here, we have simply endea- 
voured to administer to the greatest extent possible those favourable 
conditions, and to mitigate or remove the adverse ones. Although this 
system has been met with opposition by gentlemen in this country, 
it is nevertheless one which has secured to us the great success we have 
obtained in so short a time, because the true jóneiples of cultivation 
clearly. point. out, that as we follow nature in all that is beneficial, we. 
should assuredly reject all that is injurious. Under this impression, we 
have latterly followed the system of open cultivation in every respect ; 
we: Tear our seeds, strike our cuttings, and place out our plants in the 
erles, using as little shade as possible, and our results have incon- 
tay established its great advantages. 
he first sowing of our imported seeds took place in ye 
1861, and no certain data being given, our first operations were neces- 
sarily experimental, and consequently a number of the seeds were lost, 
by. being sown in too retentive a soil, and supplied with what (to Chin- 
chona seeds) proved to be an excess of moisture. The greatest success 
btained in our first attempts was by the use of a soil composed almost 
entirely of burnt earth, on which nearly sixty per cent. of ds 
germinated, the temperature of the earth being kept above 10° Fahr. 
The period required before germination took place varied from sixty-two 
to sixty-eight days, 
“A supply of seeds recently received of the valuable varieties of Chin- 
chona officinalis, have made more satisfactory progress; these were 
Sownon the 11th of February, 1862, on a very light, open soil, composed 
of a beautiful light felspathic sand, with a small admixture of leaf- 
