542 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [December i, 1881 
speculation, it has paid off the whole outlay, including 
introduction of the plants, cultivation, and interest ; and 
has hecome a complete financial success." 
Mr. Markham also gives figures to show how private 
enterprise in India and Ceylon is reaping the same re- 
ward. For his remarks on this point, we must refer 
our readers to his work. It is shown that while the 
Government of India will in future have as much de- 
mand as it can meet, in supplying cinchona febrifuge 
for the millions of India, the planters of Ceylon and 
India, as well as of Java, find a ready and profitable 
demand for their bark in Eiurope. At the same time a 
vast market for the bark is being found in China, where 
until now opium has been the cheapest drug as a cure 
and preventive of fever, and where from 30 to 40 per 
cent of the population use it, to their own ruin and to 
England's disgrace. 
The prices obtained for Jamaica bark should stimulate 
to activity in planting cinchona. Mr. Markham, in his 
sketch of Cinchona Cultivation in Jamaica, says that 
C. officinalis does not thrive so well in this island, but 
he speaks favourably of C. succirubra and C. culisaya. 
But the latest results furnished by sales of Jamaica 
" grey " barks, are proofs that officinalis grown here 
commands better prices than that of Ceylon : and last 
week we had an opportunity of seeing how, as Mr. 
Morris describes, the officinalis spreads in self-sown for- 
est patches at the highest elevations, thus exhibiting 
great fitness for the soil and situation. The island has 
now, therefore, at least three kinds of cinchona well 
established : officinalis, succirubra, and a good variety 
called calisaya, but supposed to be a hybrid between the 
other two. Moreover, the ledgeriana, a variety of cali- 
saya, introduced by Mr. Morris, is now growing well as 
a plant, and seed of it has already been imported. Of 
this ledgeriana, which Morris says fetches 17s. per lb. 
at Amsterdam, Mr. Markhmm writes : — " These plants 
yield an extraordinarily large quantity of quinine, as 
much as 9-97 per cent. In this respect they are un- 
equalled." With regard to the species known as succi- 
rubra and yielding the " red " bark of commerce, a variety 
which Mr. Morris recommends as being peculiarly suited 
to so much of our land from 2,000 feet upwards, Mr. 
Markham writes that it yields a larger percentage of 
febrifuge alkaloid than any other. As time rolls by, 
other varieties again may be found to naturalise them- 
selves easily, " the Blue Mountains of Jamaica * * * 
b«ing about the same distance from the equator on the 
North side (18° N) as the calisaya forests are to the 
south." 
As the Government now offers land for cinchona, it 
is also ready to supply the seeds and plants. Seeds of 
the officinalis, for ciutivation at elevations above 4,000 
feet are supplied at 5s. an ounce ; of succirubra, at eleva- 
tions between 2,500 and 4,000 at 3s. An ounce is 
sufficient to produce 20,000 seedlings, which will plaut 
five acres. Boxes of seedlings may be had at a guinea 
per box, and plants are obtainable at from 40s. to 60s. 
per 1,000. 
We hope to witness an early extension of cinchona 
cultivation by men who have capital and can await the 
first yield in the fourth or fifth year. The oppo rtunity 
now offered is excellent. It is possible that a market 
for the Jamaica bark will be found some day in the 
U. S. A., which consumes vast quantities of quinine, 
but for the present England takes all that can be shipped, 
and at remunerative prices. The time cannot be far off 
when the masses of Jamaica will be provided by Govern- 
ment with a cheap, effective febrifuge, now so greatly 
needed. And leaving out of question the commercial 
and social advantages resulting from cinchona, it may 
be fairly claimed that this tree, which once inspired the 
prose of Madame do Gcnlis and the verse of La Fon- 
taine will, with its graceful stem, shining leaves, and 
clustering flowers, be an additional ornament to the 
far-famed but neglected mountains of Jamaica. 
THE SUGAR AND TOBACCO INDUSTRIES OF 
1881 IN JAVA. 
(Field, 15th October 1881.) 
After three consecutive very bad years, it is satis- 
factory to be able to report a most splendid sugar 
harvest for the season 1881. In all probability, the 
production of this year will surpass that of any season 
known, in proof of which we have the most remark- 
able fact that the planters themselves confess they are 
contented; an admission that would scarcely be made 
I under any other conditions than those of unexpected' 
success. At the very- lowest computation, the actual 
production of 25 per cent more than was calculated 
upon in April last. One great reason for this satis- 
factory result is the glorious weather that has reigned 
almost uninterruptedly throughout the grinding. In May 
and early in June, a few days of rain made many 
anxious, but the wet monsoon, that has during the 
past three years taken to usurping the place of the 
dry one, finally took itself off, and in many districts 
not a drop of rain had fallen for nearly two months. 
In Batavia, where they never see a pound of raw sugar 
from one year's end to the other, they are crying out 
for rain; but it is better for them to frizzle for a 
month or two, than that the sugar industry should 
receive a blow. Had the present season been as bad 
as its predecessor, the consequences would have been 
most serious. The population, both European and 
native, of the eastern half of Java, from Cheribon to 
Bezuki (i.e., Java proper, as distinguished from Sunda), 
is so dependent on the sugar culture, that its success 
of failure affects it most intimately. So heavy had been 
the losses of the preceding seasons that many factories 
dared not risk the buying of new machinery, however 
sorely they required it. The production of sugar during 
the past four years has been as follows : — 1877 (a tre- 
mendously hot year), 4,091,570 pikuls; 1878, 3,786,404 
pikuls; 1879, 3,851,692 pikuls: 1880, 3,639,757 pikuls. 
The difference between 1880 and 1877 is thus 451,813 
pikuls, representing a value of more than half a million 
sterling, and this in the face of wonderful improve- 
ments in machinery. However, this year will compens- 
ate for everything which will be good for everybody, 
for sugar planters are the most liberal class in Java, 
and have no idea of excluding others from the benefits 
of a good time. 
A feature this year is the almost exclusive employ- 
ment of steamers in place of sailing vessels for convey- 
ing the produce to Em-ope. The fact becoming known 
that the best sugar harvest woidd be late, some specul- 
ative ones thought to be the first in the market, and 
chartered steamers. But the impartiality of the telegraph 
soon equalised matters, and now every sugar port has 
a quantity of steamers loading in it. Thus few, if any 
will reap the advantage of priority. 
The tobacco harvest is unfortunately very easily dis- 
posed of in three words, viz., there is none. The siidden- 
ness and completeness with which the tobacco industry 
has vanished from the land, so far as Europeans are 
concerned, is simply appalling. Bismarckian tariff tactics 
have had a good deal to do with it — some will have it 
everything— but there is always a good market for good leaf, 
and this is just what Java does not produce in any 
o quantity. For this the planters have to thank then 1 
pernicious system of allowing the native to do all the 
planting, and simply buying the produce at a fixed rate, 
in consideration of having made an advance. There 
are several tobacco planters in Java who make money, 
but these are all men who take the thing in their own 
hands. Things may improve, but that they will ever 
wear the aspect they wore only a few years since, when 
the term tobacco planter was synonymous with that of 
Croesus, is extremely doubtful. 
