68 EXPLOITATION OF PLANTS 
bark was for a long time obtained by felling the trees, 
and as extermination appeared probable, Sir Clements 
Markham was sent on an expedition to Peru to obtain 
seed, with a view to the cultivation of the tree in the 
British tropical colonies. He was successful in this, 
and as the climate of India appeared unsuitable, it was 
sent to Ceylon, where in the early eighties, when coffee 
was failing, some planters were induced to give it a 
trial, it having been shown to grow well in the Govern- 
ment Botanic Gardens. Thanks to the then very high 
price of quinine, the venture was extraordinarily suc- 
cessful, with the result of a boom in cinchona cultiva- 
tion. The effect was to lower the price of quinine 
upon the market from 12s. an ounce, at which it once 
stood, to 1s. 1d., which considerably reduced the profits 
and reduced the industry to a state of comparative 
collapse, which was hastened by the competition of 
better barks from Java, where more scientific methods 
were adopted, better species used, and care taken to 
improve the yield by the selection of the best seed from 
each generation. 
Cinchona thus illustrates all the phases of European 
exploitation of a tropical industry—the discovery of 
the value of the product, its collection from the wild 
plants by the cheapest methods, usually the most 
destructive, its transfer to another country by means of 
seed, its preliminary study by the aid of a botanic 
garden, its first taking up by one or two planters, the 
boom which followed their success, the resulting fall 
in price, its more scientific treatment in another country, 
and its collapse in the first owing to the competition. 
Finally, let us turn to the tropical product whose 
