302 CINCHONA CULTURE AND 



strength, and quality of fibre, we stand unrivalled, as illustrated at the 

 Great Exhibitions of London and Paris. Foremost among these, as 

 herbaceous perennials, for colour, strength, and fineness of fibre, I may 

 instance the genera Sanseviera and Bcehmeria, the former is known in 

 India as bow-string hemp, and the latter as the far-famed Chinese 

 grass cloth, or Rhea fibre of India. The finest samples of the latter, 

 cleaned and prepared, are worth 1001. per ton in British markets. 

 This plant was introduced here in 1854, and found to thrive in warm 

 moist localities, with the vigour of our rankest weeds, spreading most 

 rapidly ; still fibrous plants (I regret to say) are not yet recognised in field 

 industry, and only serve as botanical novelties in gardens. This branch 

 of agriculture is peculiarly suited for industrial and reformatory schools, 

 and, in conjunction with other practical pursuits, might soon become self- 

 supporting, while a knowledge of new staples, the plants producing 

 them and mode of treatment, would rapidly diffuse itself over the 

 island. 



The most important event in the history of this botanic garden for 

 many years past, has been the introduction by seeds of the quinine-yield- 

 ing Cinchona in the autumn of 1860. By the month of October in the 

 following year I succeeded in rearing over four hundred healthy plants, 

 quite ready for planting out ; but, unfortunately, the selection of a proper 

 site for their final establishment was overlooked, and the consequences of 

 subsequent treatment the plants had to undergo, proved the destruction 

 of one half their number. However, being wishful to prove by every 

 means in my power the result of the experiment of testing the adaptabi- 

 lity of the plant (constitutional and climatic) for cultivation in the higher 

 altitudes of this island, — finding the climate of Bath as the summer ap- 

 proached by far too warm, — I had the whole of them removed in small 

 pots to Cold Spring coffee plantation, the elevation being about four 

 thousand feet, and placed under artificial treatment. I soon found the 

 climate and soil of that locality to be all I could desire for the plants ; 

 and as it afforded every facility for carrying out so valuable an experi- 

 ment, I at once availed myself of it, and planted out in the coffee fields 

 on the 16th November, 1861, several plants of each species, then about 

 two or two-and-a-half inches in height. In twelve months after, a plant 

 of the red bark {Cinchona succirubra) had attained to the height of forty- 

 four inches, with leaves measuring thirteen and a half inches long, by 

 eight and three quarter inches broad. The same plant, now two years 

 old, measures six feet in height, with ten branches, having a circumfer- 

 ence of stem at base of four and a half inches. The Cinchona nitida and 

 Cinchona micrantha (gray barks) being of more slender habit of growth, 

 have not made such rapid progress ; the highest has attained to five feet, 

 with three branches. The leaves, however, are larger, and measure four- 

 teen inches by ten. 



So far the experiment has proved eminently successful, and is 

 placed beyond the shadow of a doubt by the most sceptical. Indeed it 



