IN THE CINCHONA FORESTS 273 
trees being cut down and the roots dug out, the bark is stripped 
off much in the same way as oak bark in England, but no other 
tool than the machete is used. . . . For drying the bark a stage 
3 feet high is erected, called a tendal. Care must be taken 
that the flame from the fire beneath the tendal does not reach 
the bark, and if rain be apprehended the whole has to be roofed 
over. When the bark is perfectly dry, they have only to convey 
it to the depot at Camaron and receive their twenty dollars per 
quintal, which is the price usually paid them by Messrs. Cordovez 
and Neyra ; or rather, they have generally received the value in 
advance, according to the custom of the country. 
In the valleys of the Chasuan and Limon I saw about 200 
trees of Red Bark standing. Out of the whole number, only two 
or three were saplings which had not been disturbed ; all the rest 
grew from old stools, whose circumference averaged from 4 to 5 
feet. I was unable to find a single young plant under the trees, 
although many of the latter bore signs of having flowered in 
previous years. This was explained by the flowering trees grow- 
ing uniformly in open places, either in cane-fields which had been 
frequently weeded or in pastures where cattle had grazed and 
trodden about. The young plants, which I had been assured I 
should find abundantly, proved to be either stolons or seedlings 
(very few of the latter) of the worthless Cifichona magnifolia^ 
which grows plentifully at Limon, and must have fruited during 
the rainy season, as the capsules were all burst open when I 
arrived there. 
Cinchona succirubra is a very handsome tree, and, in looking 
out over the forest, I could never see any other tree at all com- 
parable to it for beauty. Across the narrow glen below our hut, 
and at nearly the same altitude, there was a large old stool from 
which sprang several shoots, only one of which rose to a tree, 
while the rest formed a bush at its base. This tree was 50 feet 
high, branched from about one-third of its height, and the coma 
formed a symmetrical though elongated paraboloid. It had 
never flowered, but was so densely leafy that not a branch could 
be seen ; and the large, broadly oval, deep green and shining 
leaves, mixed with decaying ones of a blood-red colour, gave the 
tree a most striking appearance. C. magnifolia^ called here 
Cascarillo macho (male bark), grows rapidly to be a large tree. 
I saw one which must have been over 80 feet high, and I cut 
down a young tree which measured 60 feet. Saplings of 15 to 20 
feet have a very noble appearance, from the large heart-shaped 
leaves, little short of a yard long ; but in full-grown trees the 
ramification is so sparse and irregular, and the leaves are so much 
mutilated by caterpillars, that all beauty is lost. This species 
sends out stolons from the root, which sometimes form a matted 
VOL. II 
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