THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. [June i, 1881. 
with respect to Mr. Marshall Ward's lecture :— " I 
myself regarded the final remarks of Mr. Ward as 
entirely to the •point. Practical men always look for 
miracles iu remedies, which even scientists cannot 
produce." Mr. Leake writes me in reply to my 
query addressed to him on the New Granada subject : 
— " I know nothing of the new disease, never hpard 
of it before. A green yellow Hemileia with a phos- 
phoric smell must come straight from the old gen- 
tleman himself, I should think." Mr. John Brown, 
of the Uva Coffee Company, writes me: C- I can give 
you no information about leaf disease in New Granada, 
feat am anxious to know how it is progressing. I met 
a gentleman the other day who had been in conver- 
sation with a Brazilian planter, and got from him the 
assurance that there wa3 no leaf disease in that large 
opposition shop. If 1 should hear anything you will 
S»e informed." Another gentleman connected largely 
with coffee, and who has travelled much, tells me in a 
letter in reply to one I addressed to him : "The disease 
is doubtless the Hemileia vastatrix, and consequently, 
as they don't manure in those parts, it must, as I 
have all along maintained, be owing to bad seasons." 
This is all the information I have as yet been able 
to collect on this interesting topic. If I should re- 
ceive Dr. Cooke's opinion respecting it, I shall of 
course communicate it to you. — Our London Cor. 
THE INDIAN GOVERNMENT EXPORTS OF 
CINCHONA BARK. 
To the Editor of "The Colonies and India." 
Sir,— In reply to " Indicus' " letter of the 21th ult., 
X would state — 
First. — The Indian Government created their planta- 
tions for the benefit of the masses of the people, 
and to bring a cheap febrifuge within their reach and 
the whole of the bark ought now to be worked up in 
India for the benefit of the people, and, not shipped 
for sale here for the purpose of showing nourishing 
accounts. To talk of a surplus of bark with millions 
©f fevered wretches in India too poor to buy it is 
"bitter irony, as the native press will doubtless show. 
The shipments are wrong morally and are wrong legally, 
for by everlasting laws the inhabitants of a country 
have the first claim upon the produce of the soil, and in 
the present case the produce is raised from their own 
taxes. 
Secondly. — 1 have it from the highest authority that 
all the capital outlay with interest has been recovered. 
Thirdly. —If the Government wish to be prepared for 
the emergency mentioned, selling their bark in London 
is in direct opposition. Better let the trees grow and 
jimprove until they are wanted or store their febrifuge 
in til required, if they will not distribute it to the poor 
ryots ; but they need not now fear any emergency, as 
there cannot be much under fifty thousand acres, con- 
taining many millions of Cinchona trees, planted by 
private enterprise in India and Ceylon. 
I am, yours &c, 
Thomas Dickson. 
123 Bishopsgate Street Within, London. April 2. 
THE INDIAN GOVERNMENT EXPORTS OF 
CINCHONA BARK. 
To the Editor of "The Colonies and India." 
Sir,- The question whether or not the Government 
of India should extend their cinchona plantations and 
offer the surplus bark in the best market, to the 
supposed detriment of planters in Ceylon, &c, might 
perhaps be put in another light than that presented 
by Mr. Dickson. In the case he puts forward, the 
planters are said to suffer from competition. But 
even if 'he Indian Government withheld from the 
Kuropean market the surplus bark they produce, is 
it to be supposed that private planters would not 
suffer from competition elsewhere ? Would the Java 
planters who now produce the finest and most valu- 
able bark in the world cease to extend their planta- 
tions ? A^ould the Bolivians who are now cultivating 
the best cinchona trees, and who last year sent into 
the London market bark which sold at 14s. 6d. per 
lb., cease to compete against Ceylon? Ceylon can 
never hope, owing to the nature of its climate, &c, 
to compete with other districts in the most valuable 
kind of bark — viz. Cinchona Ledger iana. 
The plea of unfair competition is, therefore, childish. 
Planters must expect competition and be prepared to 
meet it by cultivating only the most valuable varie- 
ties that the climate and soil will permit of. 
Secondly. — Any profit accruing to Government from 
the sale of cinchona by increasing the revenue should 
decrease the taxation. It therefore becomes a matter 
of whether a comparatively small number of planters 
shall make large profits, or whether thousands shall 
experience a decrease of taxatio n (other things being 
equal. ) 
Thirdly. — Quinine is still sufficiently expensive in 
this country to prevent the poorest from purchasing 
it for themselves in case of fever and disease. Com- 
petition will tend to remove this evil, and bring quin. 
ine more within the reach of the poor both in 
India and in this country. 
Your correspondent " T. D." will find his sixth 
question answered in Mr. Markham's book on Peru- 
vian Bark (1880), p. 440, where it is said : — 
" It is true, therefore of the cinchona enterprise 
that, as a mere commercial speculation, it has paid 
off the whole outlay, including introduction of the 
plants, cultivation, and interest, and has become a 
complete financial success." 
And again, ' ' In 1880 the whole capital account 
had been paid of with interest, and the plantations 
began to yield a clear annual profit." 
Those who complain of competition will do well to 
seek another market, and bear in mind the suggestion 
made by a writer in the Pall Mall Gazette of September 
18, 1880 (quoted by Mr. Markham in his work), that 
" China will probably be hereafter among the largest 
and most constant customers for cheap febrifuge alkal- 
oids from British India. From vast tracts of country 
in China where rice is cultivated fever is never absent. 
Opium is now employed as the medicine easiest to be 
had and cheapest. If cinchona alkaloids could come 
into competition with opium and obtain the preference 
by their lower price, the immense superiority of cinchona 
over opium as a febrifuge would produce a revolution 
in the Chinese consumption of the two drugs. By this 
process a solution would be found for the dangers and 
uncertainties of the large opium revenue of India and 
for the perplexing moral questions connected with it." 
To the above it might be added, although somewhat 
apart from the question at issue, that it probably only 
needs a different mode of preparation for the market to 
increase the percentage of morphia and decrease that 
of narcotine in Indian opium, and to thus bring it 
into competition with the Turkish and Persian opiums, 
with which the European and American drug market is 
almost entirely supplied, Indian opium being an almost 
unknown article on the Continent or in America. 
London, April 5. I am, &c, 
Chemicus. 
[Of course the chemists and home manufacturers 
will prefer the Nilgiris bark to be sent to the Mincing 
Lane Market to being utilized on the spot. — Ed. C. O.] 
INDIA, CROP AND WEATHER REPORT. 
For the Week ending 1 2th April : General Remarks. 
— The reports disclose no material change since last 
week. The general health is fair, though small-pox 
still continues in parts of Northern and Central India 
