July i, 1889.] 
ROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
47 
Oeylon Baek. — Original.— Yellow varieties : Spoke 
chavings, fair to good 2d to 3jd; richer ditto mixed with 
chipsupto5d; chips, ordinary to good fairl§dto4|d; gcod 
to rich chips mixed with quill, 4d to 8d ; root, 5Jd to 
6§d. Bed varieties : Thin dull to good chips, l|d to 3d; 
mixed with twigs, If d to 3id; shavings, 3d to4£d; or- 
dinary dusty to good root, 2^d to 4d. Grey and hy- 
brid varieties : Fair to good chips and shavings, 3d to 
4d per lb: Benewed. — Yellow varieties : Ordinary to 
good stem chips, 3d to 5|d: chips and shavings up to 
Cd. Bed varieties : For chips and shavings an offer 
of §d per lb. was refused ; ordinary to fair chips, 2d 
to 3Jd; chips and shavings, 4d to 5-Jd. Grey : chips 
2|d per lb. 
East Indian Bark. — Original. — Yellow varieties : 
Small to fair chips, up to 3jd; fair to fine chips mixed 
with shavings, 4d to 7d; fine shavings, 9d; fair but broken 
to good druggists' quill, 5Jd to 8|d. Bed varieties : Fair 
chips, 3|d to 4d ; twigs, l£d ; root' 3d to 3§d; fair to 
good bright spoke shavings, 2£d to 4d; druggists' quill, 
ordinary broken and papery, 3d: fine old. 9d; and very 
fine heavy old, up to Is 4d per lb. Benewed .—Yellow 
chips : 6£d to 7d; grey chips, 6d to 7d; red chips, 5d to 
7Jd; hybrid, 54 d per lb. 
Java Bark.— Grey : Fine chips, 6d to 6Jd ; fair- 
chips, 3d to 3Jd; common twigs, Id to l^d; root, 4d to 
tod per lb. 
South Amebican Baek. — Of 45 packages cultivated 
Bolivian Calisaya, 28 were sold at 7d to 8d for good 
short partly silvery quill. Eight cases bold, but very 
dark and damaged, Carthageua are held at 9d per lb. 
For two bales so-called Bed bark, imported via Ham- 
burg, vory ordinary colourless quality. 9d was paid 
for sound, and 2Jd for damaged. The shipments of 
bark from Colombo in the periods between October 
1st and April 11th have been : — 
1888-9. 1887-8. 1886-7. 1885-6. 
lb. lb. lb. lb. 
6,490,357 5,803,395 8,031,374 7,929,889 
The following figures are taken from the official com- 
mercial returns for April :— 
1887. 1888, 1889. 
cwt. cwt. cwt. 
Imports, April 13,375 10,724 15,869 
„ Jan. 1— April 30 57,612 47,831 61,077 
Exports, April 14,950 10,025 9,569 
„ Jan. 1— April 30 54,747 40,031 43,845 
At the Amsterdam auctions on May 3rd the bark 
offered contained an equivalent of about 240,000 oz 
of quinine sulphate. Tne results of the chemical 
analyses were widely different, especially for manu- 
facturing barks, and the prices paid fluctuated a good 
deal. Druggists' barks in long stout quills met a 
good demand, and a few cases of fine quality realised 
comparatively high prices. The richest lots were 6 
packages Ledger original stem chips ; 8'37 per cent. 
Q. S. sold at 62 cents, 8 packages ditto renewed stem 
oliips ; 817 per cent Q. S. sold at 64 cents, and 13 pack- 
ages ledger broken quill; 892 per cent Q. S. sold at 
59 to 60 cents. The principal buyers, in order of their 
purchases, were : — 
Kilos. Kilos. 
Bark S. Quinine 
The Mannheim and Amsterdam 
Factories ... ... 41,820 1,371 
The Auerbach Factory ... 38,425 1,240 
Agents for the American, French, 
&o., Works .. ... 47,988 1,180 
The Brunswick Factory ... 14,500 602 
The Frankfort o/M. and Stuttgart 
Factories .. ... 10,300 640 
M. Paillendier, Paris ... 4,488 315 
Various other Manufacturers' ... 10,081 198 
Druggists ... ... 8,27S 
Coca Leaves. — On Friday 4 cases (24 lb each) of 
veiy fine bright green leaves, grown on the Kelvin 
estate in Ceylon, were disposed of at auction at Is 
lOd per lb., an exceptional price. There have been 
sundry small shipments from Ceylon during the last 
few years, but this we think is the heaviest one over 
received, though the article has now been cultivated 
in the island tor a good many years. Some live or sis 
years ago, during the rush for coca leaves, owing to 
the discovery of the anesthetic properties of cocaine 
a parcel of Oeylon leaves realised the highest price 
ever known forthe drug. Twenty-five boxes ..(16 lb- 
each) Java leaves were all sold on Fri lay, good green, 
but broken; leaf, at 6d per lb. ; brown at 3d per lb. 
Cubebs. — Of 12 bags stalky berries, mixed colours 
and sizes, a few damaged ones sold at 22£ to 22i 10s per 
cwt. We hear from Amsterdam that 195 piculs of new 
crop cubeb berries are on the way for that port from 
Java. The latest reports from the island confirm the 
rumour that the crop has been a small one, and owners 
are firm at the high quotations of the previous season. 
Quinine. — This article has been weak since our 
last report. On Friday last 1,000 oz. in large bulk 
B. & S. quinine sold at Is OJd per oz. at auction, and 
since then there have been second-hand sellers at that 
price, and later in the week at Is 0|d. Today we hear 
it reported that 5,000 oz. have sold on the spot at Is 
Ojd peroz. The speculative German brands are quoted 
by the manufacturers at Is 2d per oz,; Italian at Is l|d 
per oz. 
Vanilla. — Several parcels Lave arrived from Ceylon 
lately. In the Mauritius market, on April 10th, vanilla 
was scarce, and fine long beans were not to be had. 
Essential Oils. — At auction 100 cases Citronella 
oil sold without reserve at §d per oz. Large quantities 
of this oil continue to be exported from Ceylon in addi- 
tion to the produce of other sources. Of Cinnamon 
bark and leaf oils the export from Ceylon have thus 
far been very small this season. — Chemist and Druggist. 
A TOBACCO BOOM. 
People are beginning to talk and to speculate on 
a tobacco boom, which is to altogether put the 
recent Pahang flutter into the shade. Matters cer- 
tainly seem shaping that way, and the prices re- 
alised at Amsterdam for the first arrivals of the 
1888 Sumatra crop are certainly high, and tend to 
increase the belief. A recent report by Messrs. Van 
Prehn & Co., bankers, of the Hague, upon the 
market for Sumatra tobacco, and for tobacoo com- 
panies shares, states as follows : — 
The shares of the different leading Dutch Deli and 
Langkat Tobacco companies have undergone, during 
the last three weeks, a sudden and tremendous rise. 
The official lists of the quotations on the Amsterdam 
Stock Exchange show that the shares of the Amsterdam 
Deli Company stood at 360 per cent, on the 2nd inst., 
and are now at 451 per cent. The shares of the 
Arendsburg Tobacco Company, which stood at 800 per 
cent, on the 2nd instant, are now quoted at 836 per 
cent. The shares of the Deli-Batavia Tobacco Company 
which stood at 345 per cent, on the 2nd instant, are now 
at 429 per cent. The share of the Deli Company, which 
were at 520 per cent, on the 2nd instant, staud now at 
610 per cent. The rise has been very sudden, and has 
taken place in leaps of from 5 to 15 per cent, per day. 
The reasons for this really astonishing rise are : — (1) 
The high prices at which the first cargoes of the Deli 
tobacco from the 1888 crop were sold at public auction 
in Amsterdam (155 cents, or 2s 7d, per lb.) (2) The 
rumours whicn have now become a certainty, that the 
1888 orop, which will be sold in Amsterdam within the 
next six months, is a very good one ; that the quanti- 
ties of tobacco yielded by the different estates are very 
large, and that the quality leaves nothing to be de- 
sired, so that very high prices may be expected for the 
tobacoo whioh has not yet arrived. (3) That the pros- 
pects of the 1889 crop, now planted, equally promise 
to be very satisfactory. It is generally believed here 
that the rise will continue, and that the shares of the 
Deli tobacco companies will attain a still higher figure. 
Commenting on these facts the Financial. News 
writes: — The Deli and Langkat Tobacco Company has 
several features not possessed by some of the tobacco 
companies recently launched, inasmuch as it is not 
an experimental venture, but the enlargement of a 
going concern. There is virgin land to bo brought 
under cultivation, but there aro also rich fields in full 
bearing, whioh yield au ample revenue, aud have done 
