492 PROPER MODE OF CULTIVATION. Chap. XXVIII. 



pursued in Java, but on the principle of carefully comparing 

 the elevations, temperature, amount of humidity, and of 

 exposure of the moimtains where the different valuable 

 species of chinchona thrive in South America, with analogous 

 situations in the hills of Southern India. 



The important process of planting out has now commenced 

 in the Neilgherry hills, and it has been a subject of careful 

 consideration whether the chinchona-plants should be grown 

 under dense shade, under the partial shade of forest-trees, 

 or quite in the open : in other words — what are the eleva- 

 tions and amounts of exposure best suited to the growth of 

 the plants, and the development of theii" alkaloids ? 



In Java the chinchona-j^lants were at first established at 

 far too low an elevation, in a wretched soil, and exposed 

 to the full glare of the sun. Dr. Junghuhn, the present 

 Superintendent, went to the other extreme, and, though the 

 proper elevation has been ascertained, yet the error has been 

 committed of forming the plantations in the dense shade of 

 the forest, with the intention of allowing some trees to be 

 drawn up in search of light, without a branch for thirty or 

 forty feet, and of cutting them down for their bark in about 

 forty years, and of grubbing up others in search of imagi- 

 nary quinine in their roots.^ I imderstand that this plan has 

 at last been found to be erroneous, and that Dr. Junghuhn 

 now directs all the trees in the vicinity of the cliinchona- 

 plants to be cut down, though faith is still maintained in the 

 quinine-yielding roots of the worthless C. Pahudiana} 



If the thing was not sufficiently evident in itself, the ap- 

 pearance of the barks sent from Java to the Exhibition of 

 1862 is quite enough to prove that chinchona-plants ought 

 not to be cultivated under the shade of forest-trees. The 

 question of the proj)er amount of exposure to which each 



^ " It is the height of improvidence ; possible future renovation of the tree." 

 for the collectors to strip oil' the bark j — Howard. 

 from the roots, thus securing a wortii- { ' See chap. iii. p. 58. 

 less product at the expense of any I 



