630 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [January 2, 1882. 
This includes all coffee received from the interior at 
Maracaiuo, although much of it comes from Colombia. 
Although the species of Venezuelan coffee coming to us 
from La Guayra and Puerto Cabello are quite popular 
in the United States, Mavacaibo is still more so, in- 
asmuch as in point of outward appearance, size of bean 
and flavor it approaches Java, and is extensively consumed 
by the well-to-do middle classes in the United States 
in the place of the latter and Padang. 
The best cocoa is 'the celebrated Caracas, which is 
in such demand in the country of its growth, in Spanish 
America and France, that it commands a very high price 
compared with all other sorts produced anywhere, and 
this is the reason why so little of it gets to this country. 
The cocoa from Carupauo and other points on the coast 
is considerably cheaper, and goes to Mexico, Spain, 
France, etc. 
From what precedes it will be seen that there are 
few American countries producing coffee and cocoa so 
admirably fitted to expand the production thereof almost 
indefinitely. ' That crops hardly ever fail there in either 
product, the trees being less exposed and less subject 
to disease of any kind than elsewhere. But for the 
curse of revolution which has rendered capital shy, Venezuela 
would at the present day probably produce three times 
as much coffee and cocoa as it does at present. It 
shows that in some of the countries south of us the 
less respectable portion of the ruling classes, in whose 
hands the mass of the people are mere tools, are the 
worst enemies of the commonwealth. — American Grocer. 
NILGTM CINCHONA BARK. 
TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SOUTH OF INDIA OBSERVES." 
Sir, — Cinchona planters on the Nilgiris must, I think, 
have read with much interest Mr. Howard's analysis made 
in May last, of thirty samples of bark sent home at the 
close of last year from the Dodabetta and Neddiwuttum 
Government Plantations by Mr. Cross, the Botanist 
employed by the Secretary of State for India to bring 
out to this country from Santa Fee, at great labour 
and expense, the single plant now to be seen in the 
first mentioned plantation — a tiny little plant about a 
foot and a half high, and as carefully guarded and 
tended as the future progenitor of a higher race, Israelites 
of the family, deserves to be. It is a pity, however, 
that a more careful description of the samples was 
not attempted when so important a measure was under- 
taken, as there is no question more momentous to the 
private planter of this medicinal exotic, than the difference 
or advantages, commercially considered, between what 
is known as Mclvor's mossing system and coppicing, 
for wbile the words "renewed bark under moss " points 
unmistakeably to the former, the description " original 
bark"' may not, in all the instances mean what would, 
be the yield of bark harvested under the latter. The 
" Origin ilbark" cut and exported from the two Govern- 
ment Plantations annually for the home market is 
mostly, if not all, that which has had the benefit (?) 
of the covering of moss during the years it was applied 
for promoting the renewal of bark on trees from which 
two or three or four strips had been cut — the "mossing " 
thus serving the double purpose, as it is believed, of 
protecting the cambium on the parts cut on its formative 
efforts, against the effects of atmospheric exposure, and 
n the bark left untouched 011 the stem 
ee a more favourable development as to 
flkaloid formation, the moss carrying the 
',, from the ground, to five or six feet 
a the tree branches out. It would be a 
zardous feat to go all over the Dodabetta 
there are few trees to be seen in the 
of promr 
of the Si 
thickness 
stem all 
above, or 
difficuli 11 
plantatioi 
accessible 
bark in 
above 
the atmosphere. Applied to bark from South America, 
from where Mr. Cross had just arrived, the term would 
involve no doubt of this kind, as cut in the forests 
the bark would be just that which would be harvested 
in an organized plan ,of coppicing. Mclvor's system of 
mossing is, it must be remembered, a very expansive 
one, amounting to about one-fourth the total annual 
expenditure of the plantation, and while botanically admit- 
tedly effectual, it is of vital importance to the future of 
Cinchona cultivation on these Hills, that it should be 
proved to be commercially equally so ; and the position 
it would stand in compared with a well considered 
plan of coppicing. Mr. Cross's description in a few 
places may, however, be taken to refer to unprotected 
trees as in Nature, as in the samples marked Nob. 1, 
6, 9 and 27, and the yield of Quinine and Quinidine 
in these may perhaps safely be compared with the 
yield from renewed bark in the samples of the same 
species, viz., Crown Condaminea, marked Nos. 10, 11, 
12, 13, 14, as contributing somewhat to the solution of 
the vc.cata qucestio above referred to : — 
Unmossed bark. 
Quinine "j 
Quinine % 
Total 
No. 1 
4-51 
0-67 
5-18 
» 6 
4-63 
119 
5-82 
„ 9 
4-04 
0-35 
4-39 
„ 27 
4-78 
1-12 
5-90 
Average 
4-49 
0-83 
5-32 
Mossed bark. 
Quinine "/ 
Quinidine 7 
Total 
No.10 
4-79 
0-48 
5-27 
„ 11 
7-69 
016 
7-85 
„ 12 
6-60 
0-22 
6-82 
„ 13 
401 
0-76 
4-77 
„ 14- 
4-69 
0-38 
5-07 
Average 
5-55 
040 
5-95 
The difference in favor of the much vaunted and 
expensive mossing system is, by this comparison, not so 
great as one might suppose, the four samples of natural 
bark yielding say, in round numbers, 5^ per cent of 
the two most valuable alkaloids, against 6 per cent in 
the five samples of mossed bark. The Department now 
in charge of the Government plantations might be able 
to calculate whether the extra expenditure incurred in 
the mossing system of propagation and harvesting the 
bark is compensated for by this 0-63 per cent of extra 
yield in the useful alkaloids. I have, perhaps not been 
altogether fan." to the despised natural or unmossed bark 
in omitting the analysis of the sample marked No. 4 
in that category, and should enquiry show that the 
tree had not enjoyed any advantage from mossing, the 
comparison would stand then: — 
Quinine °/ 0 Quinidine °/ 0 Total. 
Mossed bark average of 
five samples 5-55 0 - 40 
Original bark average 
of five samples 5 - 50 1"11 
or something rather in favor of the latter. Qiuiiidine, 
Mr. Howard says, sells at more than half the price of 
Quinine so that to the chemist the one description of 
bark is on an average as good as the other. Is it the 
same to the planter ? The talented head of the Forest 
Department has his attention directed to the solution 
of the problem, no doubt; but it is a pity that no 
systematic attempt in this direction was made by the 
officers in charge of the plantations during the last 
twenty years of their existence. — G. B. 
5-95 
6-01 
Nature, have been exposed to the ill effects (?) of | 
COCOPALMS AND THE INSECTPEST IN FIJI. 
(Gardeners' Chronicle, 8th October 1881.) 
I regret to state that the insect pest has made the 
greatest havoc among my coconut trees ; I am led to 
infer that they must have suffered peculiarly from the 
