August i, 1889.] TK^ TROP?CAL 
return, and this shows the undertaking not to be of 
any special importance, the 18S8 crop having been 
onlv 38,000 lb. Lebak may be mentioned, in passing, 
as "being famous by reason of its connection with 
one of the most powerful modern Dutch authors, 
who by his writings, under the pseudonym of Mut- 
tatuli, did much to improve the lot of the Javanese, 
among whom he had lived for many years as an 
official. The first attempt at planting cinchona by a 
private individual was made in Java in 1886 at Garoet, 
in the Preanger, a district in which, according to 
the returns, there are now no' less than eleven plan- 
tations. This experiment was followed in the came 
year by the proprietor of Tjiomas, one of the best- 
known estates in Java, and where the cultivation of 
Dew articles appears to be always taken up with 
considerable energy, if we may judge by the fact that 
one of the consignments of coca-leaves which was 
recently ofFered for sale in London was grown on the 
same estate. Tjiomas is in the residency of Buitenzorg, 
so-called after its capital, which is the residence of 
the Govenor-General of the Dutch Ba9t Indies, and 
of a large number of the well-to-do Batavia traders, 
who find among its splendid scenery and salubrious 
climate a pleasanter abode. (Buitenzorg signifies " free 
from care") than the comparatively low lying and 
swampy soil of Batavia can offer. At Buitenzorg is 
also found the magnificent botanic garden, now under 
the direction of Dr. Treub, which has contributed so 
much to secure the successful propagation of many 
exotic economic plants in the Dutch Indies. It was 
in these gardens that tea was first cultivated from 
plants sent from the Japanese island of Decima in 
1826 by Dr. Siebold. Vanilla, ciunamon, and many 
other products were also propagated from here. At 
present there are in Buitenzorg seven cinchona planta- 
tions, but their output is small. They are all situated 
in the southern part of the residency, the northern 
p av t — and indeed, most of the north coast of the island 
being unfit for cinchona cultivation by reason 
of the alluvial character of the soil. The higher 
mountain ridges are the proper localities for cinchona, 
coffee, and other produce, and they, as a rule, are 
nearer to the Indian Ocean, where the coast of the 
island rises steep and high above the almost unfathom- 
able depth of the sea, than to the shallow Java 
sea in the north, where the soil is better fitted for 
growing rice, sugar, tobacco, indigo, and the like. 
The largest and richest plantations are found in 
Bandong and Tjiaudjoer, the former district containing 
no leas than seventeen and the latter fourteen plan- 
tations. The remaining Preanger plantations are found 
at Soemedang (one), Tasikmelaja (three), and Soeka- 
boemi (five), the latter place being the seat of the 
Agricultural Society, which was founded, we believe, 
a few years ago for the purpose of promoting the 
interests of the Java plauters, and enabling them to 
better combat the competition which they had to 
meet from other tropical couutries. Iu the adjoining 
residency of Oheribon two plantations have been 
commenced, but neither of them has yielded any crop 
as yet, though it is expected that they will produce 
au aggregate of about 17,500 lb. of 3 to 4§-per-cent 
bark this season. 
Plantations in Central Java. 
The plantations in Central Java are nineteen in 
number; but only three or four are of any great 
importance, the foremost among these being the 
Pagilaran estate, which in 1888 yielded nearly 200,000 
lb of 6-per-cent. bark. Ths estate, with four others, 
is situated in the residency of Pekalogan, where is 
found the famous " valley of death, " tilled with 
nitrogenous exhalations for some feet above the surface 
of the ground, and fatal to animal life. Pekalongan 
is al?o known as a sugar-producing district. It has 
been frequently pointed out in this journal that in 
tho preseut state of the cinchona market the only 
salvation for the planter lies in the production of a 
hark of very high quinine standard, and this is now 
generally recognised by the Java planters. The two 
richest plantations in the whole island are found in 
the Pekalongau residency— one of them, the Karang 
AGRICULTURIST. ng 
Mego estate, having in 1888 yielded a bark averaging 
942 per cent, of quinine sulphate, while another 
produced 200,000 lb of 6-per-cent. bark. In the resi- 
dency adjoining Pekalongan — that of Samarang, the 
capital of which, of the same name, is the third most 
important trading-port of the island — there are four 
plantations, one of which (Langenardjo) produces a 
very rich bark. Trie cinchona plantations here, how- 
ever, are not of much extent, except one at a place 
called Ambarawa, where the 1888 crop was about 
26,500 lb of 5§-per-cent. bark. With one more excep- 
tion — that of the "My Bagelen" estate at Ledok — 
all the remaining plantations in Central Java are not 
as yet of much account. Several of them have sent 
no returns, some are abandoned, and others are as 
yet too young to yield any crop. It does not appear 
as if outside the western part of the island the 
cultivation, even if in future it should continue to 
expand, will ever attain that eminence which it has 
done in the Preanger districts. Cinchona-growing is 
essentially an Indo-European industry. Some twenty 
years ago an attempt was made by the Government 
to popularise the cultivation of cinchona by natives, 
and thousands of young plants were sent out all over 
the Archipelago ; but the care required in the propa- 
gation of the trees is too much for the easy-going 
Javanese, and they have never taken kindly to the 
industry. AVith some slight exception during tho 
earliest years of the Government plantations, cinchuna- 
growing has always been a " free " industry iu Java. 
Other crops have been extended in the island under 
the so-called " culture system," which compelled the 
natives to work at fixed daily wages for the Govern- 
ment, to devote a certain part of their land to the 
cultivation of articles specially indicated by the 
Government, and then to sell their crops to the 
Government at a price fixed by the latter. Coffee and 
tobacco have been made into staple products by these 
means, while cinchona has been left to the initiative 
of the European growers. 
Plantations in Eastern Java. 
In Eastern Java which embraces some of the most 
fruitful and also some of the wildest parts of the colony, 
there are at present four or five large plantations and 
several smaller ones, while a few have been aban- 
doned, their cinchona-trees in some cases proving 
almost valueless, while in others the trees have been 
uprooted to make way for the more profitable coffee- 
cuitivatiou. In the Kediri residenoy there are eight 
plantations, but not one of them appears important. 
In Soerabaya, a residency the capital of which is 
the second largest, if not the largest, trading-port of 
Java, there are thirteen plantations, most of which 
are situated on the magnificent highlands of Malang, 
a plateau which is surrounded, as it were, by a circle 
of volcauoes, including the Smeroe, the highest meun- 
tain of Java, rising some 13,000 feet above sea-level, 
and the Bromo, an active volcano, which is regarded with 
superstitious dread by the Javanese as the harm 1 : of 
the spirit of the Indian Sea, Katoe Kidoel. In these 
rocks and in their neighbourhood numbers of edible 
bird's-nests, built by a species of sea-swallow, are 
gathered by the natives, who sell them to the Chinese, 
by whom they are regarded as an exceptional delicacy. 
On the Malang plateau, too, the best coffee is grown, 
and vast quantities of sugar are also produced in this 
residency. In the village of Toeban in the adjoining 
province, near the north coast, is found what is alleged 
to be the largest tree in Java, a wild kapok-tree 
(kapok is a kind of vegetable wool, and an important 
article of trade), the trunk of which measures fifty 
feet in circumference. In the extreme east of the island, 
in Bezoeki and Panaroekan, three cinchona plantations- 
are said to exist, but they have either sent in no> 
returns or else they are not harvesting at present. 
The harvest of cinchona in Java generally commences 
about June or July, when the east or dry monsoon 
is at its height, and it is mostly garnered by November, 
when the weather changes and the north-west monsoon, 
with its storm-laden clouds, breaks over tho island 
from the Chinese Sea, pouring down incessant rains 
until the following April. 
