Chap. III. NECESSARY PRECAUTION IN FELLING. 45 



trees were destroyed every year, and Ruiz* protested against 

 the custom of barking the trees, and leaving them to be 

 destroyed by rot. But nothing was ever done in the way of 

 conservancy, either by the Government, or by private specu- 

 lators wliose subsistence depended on a continued supply of 

 bark. Dr. Weddell, alluding to this recklessness as regards 

 C Calisaya, observes that " the forests of Bolivia, rich as they 

 are, cannot long resist the continued attacks to which they 

 have been recently exposed. He who, in Europe, sees these 

 enormous and ever-increasing masses of bark arrive, may 

 perhaps believe that they will continue to do so ; but he who 

 sees the chinchoua-trees in theii' native forests, and knows 

 the real truth, is obliged to think otherwise." 



There is, however, no danger of the actual extirpation of 

 the trees unless the plan is adopted of leaving them standing, 

 and stripped of their bark, as in the Loxa forests. Poeppig 

 says that, in these cases, the trees in the tropical forests are 

 attacked by rot with extraordinary rapidity ; hosts of insects 

 penetrate the stem to complete the work of destruction, and 

 the healthy root becomes infected. Thus the valuable siDecies 

 called C Uritudnga has really been almost exterminated. 



But w^here the trees are felled it is only necessary to 

 observe the precaution of hewdng the stem as near as possible 

 to the root, in order to be sm"e of its after-growth.^ Under 

 these circumstances, after six years the young trees are 

 ready to be felled again in tlie milder regions, and after 

 twenty years in cold and exposed locaKties. From the base 

 of the stems, when not barked, a number of shoots spring out 

 between bark and wood ; and Dr. Karsten says that, though 

 an interval of rest of twelve or fifteen years must be given to 

 the forests w'here tlie chinchona-trees have thus been felled, 

 this only promotes further investigation in the endless 



* 3IS. ijuoted by Howard. * Poeppig. 



