BRITISH PHARMACEUTICAL CONFERENCE, NORWICH. 



413 



The chief plantations in British India are those on the ises. 

 Neilgherry Hills, near Madras, the most elevated mountain 

 range in India southward of the Himalaya. " The climates of 

 the Neilgherry Hills," observes Markham, "are the most 

 delightful in the world, and it may be said of this salubrious 

 region, with its equable seasons, what the Persian poet said of 

 Kung, ' The warmth is not heat, and the coolness is not cold.' " 



By a parliamentary return, it appears that in May, 1866, the Cinchona 

 number of Cinchona plants in the Government plantations in Cultlvatlol) - 

 this locality was 1,233,645, of which nearly 300,000 belonged 

 to the species yielding red bark, 758,000 to that affording 

 pale or crown bark, and 37,000 to Cinchona calisaya. This, it 

 must be remembered, by no means indicated the full extent of 

 Cinchona culture on the Neilgherries, since there were, in 

 addition, considerable plantations belonging to private indi- 

 viduals. From Mr. Broughton's report published in April of last 

 year, which is the latest information to which I have access, 

 it appears that the number of plants of the red bark in the 

 Government plantations in that locality was at that date 800,000, 

 which is an enormous advance on the return from which 1 have 

 just quoted. Other plantations have been Ibrmed in Wynaad, 

 Coorg, on the Pulney Hills, and in Travancore, in British Sikkim, 

 in the Kangra valley in the Punjab, and at Mahabaleshwur, 

 in the Bombay Presidency. In Ceylon, the success that has 

 attended the introduction of the Cinchona has been most marked, 

 " Many thousands of plants," writes Mr. Thwaites, <f have been 

 distributed from the Hakgalla garden, and I have received most 

 favourable reports of their perfect health and vigorous growth ; 

 and not a single report of an opposite character has yet reached 

 me ; so that there appears to be every prospect of quinine 

 becoming before very long one of the most important products 

 of the island." 



From the Himalaya the account is no less remarkable. At 

 Darjeeling, which, as you will remember, is one ^of the health- Darjeeling. 

 stations for the Europeans of Calcutta, there are now five 

 plantations for the cultivation of Cinchona, with an aggregate 

 total in April last of more than 1,558,000 young trees, of which 



