Sl2 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[March r, 1882. 
Ion coffee direct to the Continent, find their occupation 
gone, and it is pretty much the same with the export 
houses who execute" orders on the spot. There is literally 
nothing to be done and men sit idle in their offices, or 
wander in and out of the commercial sale room, their 
faces growing longer with each foreign telegram posted on 
tlu' board, and every fresh report from the auctions go- 
ing on up-stairs, for they all tell the same tale of the 
utter want of confidence, and consequent decline, because 
supplies are in exoess of the demand. For the moment 
at least the pessimists have it all their own way, and no- 
body has a good word to say for coffee. You will have 
noted that even Messrs. Patry and Pasteur express the 
opiuion that we have not reached the lowest point, and 
it would be cruel deception to say that there are any 
strong or well-denned hopes of a speedy reaction. The 
latest telegrams from Brazil put down the probable available 
supply thence from 1st July, 1882, to 30th June, 1883, at 
7,000,0000 bags divided in this way : — balance remaining in 
the two ports on June 30th next 1,000,000 bags : — next 
seasons crop from Rio 4,000,000. and from Santos 2,000,000 
bag-, as however, Messrs. Kern, Hayn & Oo. pointed out 
in their December circular, it is too early even in the 
middle of January to form trustworthy estimates and it 
is obviously impossible to tell how much will be left on 
hand when the current season closes. There is plenty of 
time I take it for bad weather, to upset all present cal- 
culations, but still it is tolerably certain that nothing has 
occurred so far to mar the prospects of a crop equal to 
the one now coming forward, and that it is manifestly in 
excess of consumers' requirements. At the same time there 
is this gratifying feature iu the situation so far as Cey- 
lon growers are concerned; notwithstanding the exceptional 
depression, fine colory plantation sold yesterday as high 
as 113s and it may be taken for granted that the higher 
grades of your staple will still maintain their value, though 
middling and ordinary qualities are dragged down by com- 
petition with foreign sorts, and the present quotations for 
the low grown begin at 54s for small. Such a wide range 
of prices is entirely without precedent, but it is after all 
quite natural under the circumstances. Ceylon proprietors 
at home, are encouraged to hope by the latest advices 
from your side, that they may be recompensed for a bad 
market, by a big crop next season, whilst the outlook in 
regard to cinchona, tea and cocoa is very satisfactory. It 
is worth noting that the consumption of cocoa has gone 
on steadily increasing iu this country during the last 22 
years from 1550 tons in 1,859 to 4,865 tons in 1881 and 
during the last three or four years all descriptions of In- 
dian Peas, with which Ceylon is included, have grown in 
.popular estimation with amazing rapidity. — " O. Times" Cor. 
PRODUCTION OF QUININE. 
The Laboratories (a Barcelona journal) gives the 
following figures as the annual product of tbe various 
quinine makers in the world, but does not state the 
source from which they are obtained : 
Kilos. 
North America ... ... 20,000 
Howard, London ... ... 10,000 
Whiffen, London ... ... 3,500 
Jobst, Stuttgart ... ... 9,000 
Bohringer & Sons, Mannheim 9,000 
Brunswick Chininfabrik ... 6,000 
Z>mmer, Frankfort ... 6,000 
P Koch, Oppenheim ... 1,500 
Pelletier, France ... ... 4,000 
Taillandier, France ... 3,000 
Nchissmann, France ... 1,000 
Dufour Fratelli, Genoa ... 3,000 
The Lombard Factory, Milan 40,000 
We learn from an American journal that, — " The 
Lombard Factory is a limited company, with a 
capital of 4,000,000f. in shares of 500f. It is under 
the direction of Mr. Alexander Bohringer. The factory 
fetands on a space of 8,300 square metres, and the 
whole superficial floor space is 130,000 i quare metres.' 
The above table gives a total of 116,000 kilo- 
grammes or about 255,200 lb. of quinine, which is 
singularly close to the aggregate of the estimate 
we embodied in the last edition of our " Handbook 
and Directory," although the details differ. Our 
calculation was as follows : — 
MANUFACTURE AND CONSUMPTION OF QUININE. 
Manufacture in 
lb. 
63,000 
United States 
Germany 
Italy 
France 
England 
India 
56,250 
45,000 
40,000 
27,000 
12,500 
243,750 
Consumption. 
United States ... 
Germany, Holland 
& Belgium 
Italy 
France 
Russia, Austria, 
Turkey & Greece 
India 
(Other countries, 
Japan, Brazil, 
Africa, and Aus- 
tralia, &c.) 
88,000 
30,000 
22,500 
20,000 
40,000 
17,500 
25,000 
243,000 
India is however left out of the Barcelona estimate, 
and ; if we include the cheaper alkaloids in our 
reckoning, we suppose 300,000 lb. would be a fair 
estimate of the world's manufacture at the present 
moment. If we take 2 per cent of quinine as 
about the average obtained from the bark worked up, 
this would give 15 millions pounds' weight of bark per 
annum required by manufacturers. Here again we 
are in close approximation to the estimate we vent- 
ured to compile a year ago of the probable consump- 
tion of Cinchona Bark for all purposes : — 
imports and consumption of cinchona bark. 
United Kingdom and British Colonies import 
about S) millions lb., but consume only ... 3,500,000 lb. 
India (manufactures fr m local growth apart 
from quinine, &c, imported) 500,000 lb. 
Europe, Continent of, through Holland and 
France (5£ million lb.) chiefly 8,500,000 lb. 
United States ... 6,500,000 lb. 
Other Countries (Brazil, Africa, and rest 
of Asia) 1,000,000 lb. 
Increase within next few years 1,850,000 lb. 
Total... 21,850,000 lb. 
Thirteen millions of pounds was the estimate in 1880 
of the quantity of bark utilized for quinine, the rest 
being required for bark preparations by druggists, by 
brewers (in Germany especially) as a substitute for hops, 
and as a dentifrice. Before we go further we may ask how 
manytrees of an average description would be wanted for 
this yield of quinine, if cut down and rooted up on 
plantations, and how many if scraped only ? But the 
practical value of such an enquiry is interfered with 
when we remember the sometimes enormous quantity 
—hundreds of pounds' weight oi dry bark — got from 
a single full-grown tree in the South American forests 
as compared with the 5 lb. to 25 lb. of bark per 
tree harvested in Ceylon and India. A reference to 
our London Commercial Letter today will however 
fhew that I he steady diminution of the supply of 
bark from South America is already freely anticipated, 
and it is manifest that if it depended on Ceylon, 
India and Java to supply even half the present total of 
requirements for all purposes— or ten millions of pounds 
