April i, 1890.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
681 
THE SIKK.IM AND BHUTAN 
CINCHONA PLANTATIONS. 
The 27th annual report has reached us and will 
be found on page 696. From the summary in the 
Eesolution o£ the Government of Bengal we quote as 
follows : — 
The plantation was visited during the year by a severe 
hailstorm, which completely destroyed thousands of 
young plants in the nurseries and injured even the 
larger trees. 
The total number of cinchona trees of all sorts on the 
plantations was 4,810,231, two-thirds of which are pure 
quinine yielders. The crop of the year, which was the 
largest ever harvested, amounted to 373,100 pounds of 
dry bark, of which 207,460 pounds were red, 128,770 
pounds Ledgeriana, aad 36,870 pounds of other sorls. The 
whole of this crop was, with the exception of a small 
quantity supplied on indent or sold to Government insti- 
tutions, made over to the febrifuge factory for disposal. 
The outturn from the factory, which is regulated by 
the demand, was 8,575 pounds, of which 2,191 pounds 
were of sulphate of quinine and 6,384 pounds of cin- 
chona febrifuge. The total outturn for the previous 
year amounted to 7,250 pounds. The issues during the 
year fell from 8,089 pounds in 1887-88 to 7,489 pounds 
in the current year. 
An account of the method of manufacturing pure 
ulphate of quinine by a process recently discovered in 
the Government Factory at Mungpoo, together with a 
brief history of its invention, was published in the 
Calcutta Gazette of the 28th Maroh 1888. This, Dr. 
King now points out, was incomplete, inasmuch as it 
did not allow to Mr. O. H. Wood, formerly Quinologist 
in the Plantation, sufficient credit for his share in the 
conception and perfection of the new process. Dr. 
King has appended to his report a memorandum pre- 
pared by Mr. Wood, which gives a fuller account and 
history of the invention. The Lieutenant-Governor 
fully endorses Dr. King's opinion of the value of Mr. 
Wood's services io this matter, and he is glad to take 
this opportunity of recording his appreciation of Mr. 
Wood's action, which has been marked by an evident 
desire to place at the disposil of Government tho 
knowledge and experience which he has acquired by 
careful and laborious experiments in England. The 
Lieutenant-Governor is also glad to acki.owledg e Mr. 
Gammie's successful efforts in applying the new inven- 
tion to manufacture. It is satisfactory to find that no 
less than 2,1911b. of pure sulphate of quinine were 
prepared iu the first year of its manufacture by this 
new process. 
The revenue derived from the sale of the febrifuge 
sulphate of quinine, seeds, plants, and barks amounted 
to 111,29,160-3, against Kl,37,511-3-8 in the previous year. 
The net profit on the year's working amounts to 
E27.844. 
The Lieutenant-Governor's thanks are again due to 
Dr. King and Mr. Gammie for their efficient manage- 
ment of the Department. The other Assistants are 
well spoken of. 
In view of the reduction in price of quinine which 
has taken place, Dr< King is justified in holding 
that the efforts of the Governments of Holland and 
Britain to secure for their tropical subjects a cheap 
remedy for the oommonest of all tropioal diseases 
has proved a more triumphant success than was 
ever anticipated. 
THE SISAL INDUSTRY IN THE 
BAHAMAS. 
We have been favoured by a well-informed corre- 
spondent in the Bahamas with some eamples of tho Sisal 
hemp grown in that colony, accompanied by a long and 
interesting accouut of tho progress and prospects of the 
newiudustry. Sample lots of fibre from the Bahamas 
have been recently sold iu Loudon at the high figure 
of 50ii 15s a ton, but this, of course, is rather excessive. 
At the prioe cf 252 a ton a very wide margin for profit 
will be left to the producers, so that it really seems as 
if the sanguine calculations of the Bahama people in 
86 
regard to their new in lustry have every prospect of rea- 
lisation. As we have previously mentioned, the new 
industr;al economy in the Bahamas has been largely 
brought about through the energy and foresight of Sir 
Ambrose Shea, the popular Governor of the islands, 
who has been working awa}' with most admirable Zea- 
land enthusiasm since ha was sent to Nassau to pro. 
mote the interests of the colony. During the past twelve 
or fourteen years the Sisal industry has been keenly 
followed in Yucatan, and the t iles of the vast fortuues 
made in that country lately are almost too remarkable 
to be true. The stories seamed so incredible that 
Sir Ambrose Shea sent a Commissioner over to see 
how much truth they really did contain, and the 
reports he subsequently received fully o nfirmed the 
statements. Previous to ihe arrival of Sir Henry 
B ! ake— Sir Ambrose Shea's predece-so: — the Sisa< hid 
been a cordially-despised plant in the Bahamas. 
Like the troublesome Bathurst burr in the Austra- 
lian Colonies, the Sisal was regarded as a 
nuisance in the Bahamas, and various efforts 
— individual and organised — were made from 
time to time to eradicate it. The tenacity of 
the plant, however, appears to be amazing, and 
like colonial sheepskin affixed by beeswax, as the song 
Bays— 
The more you try to pull it off 
The more it sticks the faster. 
The more determined the Bahama people became ij 1 
their efforts to root out and destroy ihe noxious Sisa'> 
the more that vigorous plant held its ground, fill th e 
islanders abandoned the task in despair, and h e 
Sisal became to the Bahamian what the rabbit i s 
to the Australian — an inevitable, irremovable pest" 
It is not surprising, therefore, that when Sir Ambrose 
Shea's Commissioner returned from Yucatan with a 
full corroboration of the seeming fairy tales re- 
specting the fortunes made from the Sisal cultiva- 
tion thero should have been some little incredulity 
in the Bahamas, more especially as the Yucatan pl*nt 
was described as being inferior in many important 
respects to the despised prodni t to the islands. In 
fact, the fibre produced fr m tbe Sisal grown in the 
Bahamas is much superior and worth a good deal 
more than the Yncat<n article. The esteemed cor- 
respondent who favours ns with particulars from 
the Bahamas ant cipates — not without very good 
foundation, we feel sure — 'hat a great snO' ess will 
be realised when 'he industry comes into full work- 
ing order, and that the exports of the Colony, 
instead of being', as at present, a'oout 130,0002 a 3 ear, 
will in a very short time be counted by mil ions. It 
seems strange that a pLnt which 2 years t go was viewed 
as a pestilential weed should now be universally re- 
garded as a means of lifting the Colony into a high 
state of prosperity, changing tho place from a 
hopeless condition of depression in f o one of bounding 
advancement. The price of the Crown lands in the 
Colony has already been raised from 5s. to 16s 81. an 
acre, and from present appearances it seems probable 
that the Governor will soon find it neces-ary to sell no 
more. Sir Ambrose appears, indeed, to be exerci iug a 
good deal of forethought in dealing with the altered con- 
dition of affairs in his Colony, and recognising that the 
population must soon be largely augmented, he wisely 
proposes to retain land enough to give standing room to 
immigrants later on. He has made reservations to enable 
him to make peasant proprietors on easy terms of all 
heads of families who are now without Iand,aud who are 
to pay 5s an acre out of their first fibre crop, when 
they wid get a grant of land free. This is for the 
very poorest, who have no present means to purchase. 
If these people, who are by no meaus an insignificant 
number, were deprived of all share in a state of genei al 
prosperity it is thought that their natural discoutmt 
would operate injuriously on large cultivators, so tht t, 
reflectively as well as directly, the policy leemstobe 
an exceedingly wise one. It is indeed more than this, 
for it aptly illustrate the wisdom of ohoosing Governors 
of the Shea stamp for our smaller and undeveloped 
Colonies. Tho though ful and paternal way in which 
Sir Ambrose maps out his economic legislation for rich 
and poor alike is deserving of tbe highest commendation, 
