470 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [January i, 1890 
PLANTING IN NETHEBLANDS INDIA. 
(From the Straits Times, Dec. 3rd.) 
In Java the Government have set a plantation 
of gutta pereha trees on foot in the Preanger 
district. Experience has shown that these trees 
thrive in West Java, and take kindly to both soil 
and climate - . 
Ministerial statements laid before the States 
General show that steps have been Uken to mark 
out the boundary line of Netherlands territory in 
Borneo and New Guinea. It is intended to settle 
once for all the pending frontier difficulties with 
the British North Borneo Company, 
A correspondent of the Batavia Nieuivsblad has 
seen for himself how matters stand in British 
North Borneo. He does not spare the B. N. B. 
Company's shortcomings, but admits that it has 
shown wonderful energy and vigour in administering 
the government of the country. The administer- 
ation of justice, especially, meets with praise at 
his hands. Both employers and coolies on estates 
are closely looked after, and kept within the 
bounds of the law. He found among many officials 
a jealousy of Hollanders, owing to the latter 
having principally the management of estates there. 
The example of encouraging enterprise set in 
B. N. Borneo has been followed in the neighbouring 
parts of the .Netherlands possessions. The Resident 
of Amboyna has, for instance, gone to the Aru 
islands to farm out the pearl fisheries in that 
quarter on behalf of Government. Meanwhile, ad 
venturers have had the run of them during the 
last 50 years without official interference. The 
Government have also become now more liberal in 
granting land to planters in the outlying islands. 
The news of the Brazilian revolution sent the 
price of coffee up at Batavia, and brought about a 
brisk business in that article. 
THE PEOPOSED CINCHONA SYNDICATE. 
In a letter to the Chemist and Druggist, Baron 
von Eosenberg gives the following information : — 
Your smile at my idea that manufacturers and 
middlemen would be glad to help us is very gentle, 
but your compassion veils the evident desire to laugh 
out loud. I admit that my statement seems a remark- 
able one, but I willgive you my reasons for it. Merchalts 
and brokers are easily settled, for they get paid by 
a commission of 2£ per cent, which is of course more 
on bark fetching 6d than on bark fetching 3d. As 
to manufacturers, I submit that they are cutting their 
own thruats by their present policy. In two years' 
time the amount of bark available for the market from 
Ceylon will be about half the amount put in during 
the past year — instead of 10 millions 5 millions. That 
decrease will not in any way be covered by the increase 
in shipments from Java and India. Now the manu- 
facturers, trusting to a continuous or even increased 
supply, have, so as to keep the unit down, drawn 
heavily on the large stocks they themselves formerly 
held. These two causes of diminished supply will in 
two years, or even before then, send up the unit with 
leaps and bounds, and manufacturers will have to 
pay heavily for their present policy of keeping the unit 
unreasonably low. 
Now one of the chief causes of this prospective 
reduction of supply is the low unit that has ruled 
during late years. Thousands of trees would of course 
have died in any case, but these have been increased to 
millions, and are increasing, by the impossibility of 
Kiifiioient cultivation at low returns. The early age at 
which barking operations had to be commenced has 
also had a most pernicious effect in killing out enor. 
moua numbers of trees. Yet the barking had to be 
done to enable proprietors to keep their heads above 
water, their mature clearings not yielding them suffi- 
cient for this at the low unit, and further capital for 
i>. holding policy being unobtainable, on account of the I 
general distrust of a future in the bark trade. This 
distrust, and the fact that cinchona has lately been an 
almost unremuneraiive product, has also led many 
planters to cut out healthy cinchona to make away for 
some more paying cultivation, such as tea. There is, 
however, not only the actual decrease in quantity to 
be reckoned with, but aho the decrease in quality, owing 
to cultivation being impossible. To give you an instance 
I had to semi-abandoo two of my clearings so as to 
be able to thorougaly keep up the remainder. Weeds 
got the upper hand, forking I could not afford. Now 
cinchona is pre-eminently a surface-feeder, and in clean 
clearings the little feeder rootlets will be found outside 
the ground among the decaying leaves. Thus in a weedy 
clearing the food supply for the cinchona is materially 
diminished, and the health of the tree is injured by 
this as well as by the caking of the soil about the 
crown. The percentage of mortality in the above 
clearings has increased enormously from year to year 
and the percentage of quinine in their renewed bark 
has sunk from 6 per cent to 4 per cent. You may be 
certain that I do not stand alone in this experience, 
but that hundreds of my broiher-planters have had to 
do the same with some of if not all their clearings. 
But you will say manufacturers and the retail trade 
will simply raise their prices if the prioe of bark 
rises. It is, however, not so easy to raise the price 
for the consuming public as it is to lower it, especial y 
when it is known that the profits of the middlemen 
are, even at present, very great. But, should this be 
possible — should the manufacturers aud the retail trade 
be able to raise their prices so as to obtain the same 
proportionate profits on a 6d unit as they do on a lid 
one — then it would be well worth the consideration ot 
producers to manufacture aud sell their quinine ou the 
co-operative principle, thus doing both themselves and 
the public a good turn. Tbat this can be done, and 
without anything like an enormous capital being neces- 
sary, has been lately demonstrated at Darjeeling and 
Ootacamund. I do not, however, wish to press this 
point, which is not likely to become one of practical 
interest so long as manufacturers and the trade 
generally give us fair terms. What I am striving to 
secure is the co-operation of planters in one direction 
or another so that we may get our money 's worth 
and not be driven like sheep. After eight years' 
residence and work on his estate a cinchona planter 
if he is lucky, gets 6 per cent ou his money at the 
present unit, and runs the risk of seeing his capital 
float away altogether by mortgage or loss of trees. 
Why, in the mime of all that is " shocking," should 
middlemen, between him and the public, make 30, 60, 
aye, in some cases, 90, per cent profit? Prices will, no 
doubt, rise of their own accord, but I wish to see 
planters strong enough to keep them at reasonable 
figure by union among themselves. 
THE CEYLON TEA TEADE AND 
GEOCEES' WEAPPEES, 
A Ceylon estate proprietor now in Eagland writes 
to us as follows by last mail: — 
Since I have been at L home I have noticed a good 
many Ceylon Tea Selling Companies using doubtful 
names such as " Mazawatte," " Patabala," " Ara- 
watte" and "Santossie." These are trade marks and 
are properly registered probably. I have a suggestion 
to make and am prepared to use my best endeavours 
to carry out the scheme. It is this: — Collect a fund 
from all the estates in Ceylon to register as a design 
and print according to demand wrappers for grocers 
bearing on one side all the names of Ceylon estates 
(tea) and on the other in large type Borne short 
sentence calling attention to the merit of Ceylon 
(British-grown) tea. The Grocery Trade are always 
using such wrappers, and it appears to me my style 
is more sensible than a lot of doggrel verses or a 
picture of trees and scenery with a monkey skilfully 
concealed somewhere underneath : " Puzzle — find the 
monkey." 
I do not know what my wrappers would cost, but 
the registration of designs &o. has been much re- 
duced in prioe of late. 
