884 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST 
[April i, 1882. 
of so valuable a character that it deserves the special 
attention of cultivators. Col. Beddome was just 
as favourably impressed with the new cinchona, but 
under the influence of a foregone conclusion against 
the hybridization theory and deference to the opinion 
of Mr. Cross, the able Conservator of Forests (no 
mean botanist) rejected the idea and the name of 
hybrid, and accepted the assertion of the ci-devant 
bark collector that the tree was that known in South 
America as Pdtd de Qalinazo. Dr. Trimen has 
shewn that this is a mere bark-collector's 
name and that it iucludes six different kinds. 
We have no prejudice in favour of the aristocracy of 
science as against the democracy. For a "gardener " like 
the late Mr. Mclvor we entertained the highest 
respect. In his battle with the Doctors, — men of such 
mark as Drs. Anderson, Macpherson and Bidie — he 
may have been self-opinionated and somewhat emphatic. 
But experience has proved that as regarded plant- 
ing cinchonas in the open, and barking instead of 
coppicing the trees, he was right and the learned 
Doctors wrong. Mr. Moens, after visiting the Nilgiri 
plantations, very greatly astonished Mr. Cornish of 
Madras, by insisting as Col. Beddome did and as most 
candid persons now do that the barking process was wo* 
murdering the trees. We should equally respect and 
support the gardener, Mr. Cross, if we saw any 
evidence in favour of not merely his egotistic self- 
assertion but his offensive impeachment of the veracity 
of his former master, Dr. Spruce, and tho judgment 
of the leading scientists of our day. Even Col. Beddome, 
who accepted Mr. Cross's name for what he (Mr C.) 
deemed a distinct species, complained, in hie report, to 
the Indian Government of the contradictory opinions 
which Mr. Cross had given of this very plant. And 
then, although Col. Beddome is, as we have admitted, 
a botanist of no mean mark, if it becomes a question 
between him and such an authority as Dr. Trimen 
on a point of vegetable physiology, such as the effect 
of dimorphic flowers, with reference to resisting or 
offering facilities to the hybridization process, we sup- 
pose the almost unanimous judgment of the scientific 
world would confirm the opinion of the learned Direct- 
or of the Royal Botanical Gardens of Peradeniya. Col. 
Beddome adduced the fact of the male organ being 
prominent in some blossoms, and the female equally 
prominent in others, as militating against the idea of 
natural bybridity. Dr. Trimen holds, rightly beyond 
doubt, that this very peculiarity in the flower organs 
favours the process. Mr. Moens shewed us, on the 
Java plantations, the butterfly and the bee, which 
he looked upon as the great agents of a process which 
experience had led him to dread so much as con- 
taminating his best Ledgerianas by the pollen of 0. 
JonepJdana, Schuhkroft, Javanica &c, that he had 
advised and obtained authority for the extirpation of the 
inferior kinds ; all but a few plants which, in positions 
securing them from doing harm, are to be retained for 
purposes of a series of experiments in hybridization. But 
to shew how men, especially Scotchmen, adhere to their 
opinions as tenaciously as a limpet sticks to a rock, we 
may mention that, when we announced to a leading local 
planter our conversion to the hybrid theory, he poured 
cut a torrent of objurgatory eloquence enough to make 
the hair stand on end on the bark of C. pubescens. 
Belief in natural hybridity was an impeachment of the 
wisdom of providence ! and as to our illustration of the 
care gardeners took of their cabbage seed plants, the 
braisicas were too innately pure to entertain, much less 
act out, an idea so abhorrent. Moens was a maunderer; 
a fig for Forbes Laurie ; while Dr. Trimen was as 
much blasphemed as could possibly be the case 
where actual swearing was not resorted to ! What 
the eloquent advocate of puris naturalibus in the 
cinchona species will say to the able letter which, 
after delay which we regret, we this day insert, and 
which is signed " New Products," but to which the 
name of the author might as well have been affixed, 
we can only wonder. The case of the practical planter 
seems to us as impregnable as that of the eminent 
scientist, and if our anti-hybrid friend is wise he will 
" keep a calm sough " on the subject henceforth and 
forever. He is more likely, however, in triumphant 
tones to quote Mr. Howard's commentary on a cinchona 
grown in Jamaica (see reports and analyses in today's 
issue), which Mr. D, Morris (a botanist and 
well acquainted with cinchona?) as well as his pre- 
decessors had always described as a hybrid. Mr. 
Howard recognized the great merits of the plant, 
but could see no signs of hybrid origin in the 
bark. Howard, however, had not seen the leaves and 
flowers ; so this case will not largely help the sceptics. 
That Mr. Thompson, with no previous experience 
of cinchonas, should, on the other hand, have ad- 
opted a hybrid as true calisaya, while the real 
Simon Pures were ranked as officinalis, amounts to 
nothing in the controversy. Mr. Thompson, like 
the rest of us, had to learn by making occasional 
mistakes. But the marvellous thiDg is that true 
calisayas should in Jamaica, flourish specially on bare, 
windy slopes ! That certainly is contrary to Indian 
and- Ceylon experience. The bark of such calisayas 
was pronounced even at 5 or 6 years old to be worth 
8s per lb. ; while what Mr. Morris, following the 
brokers, called a hybrid gave an analysis equivalent i 
to 14s per lb. ! In Mr. Howard's opinion the specia 1 
kinds under cultivation in Jamaica compare favour- 
ably with those in India, Ceylon and South 
America, but our readers will note that many of the ! 
trees were so old as 19 years, and that quality seems i 
to have increased with age, instead of deteriorating 
after the tenth year as Mr. Broughton inferred. ! 
Most of the trees, it will also be noted, grew I 
at 5,000 feet elevation and upwards. 
Just in time to be added to these remarks, comes a 
letter from the veteran quinologist, Mr. John Eliot 
Howard, dealing with the still undecided question, I 
as Mr. Howard deems it, of the place and name of ! 
the robust cinchona. The quotation " infallibility" is I ; 
a good-humoured reference to a correspondence be- j 
tween Mr. Howard and the senior editor of this 
paper. The latter (in his days of ignorance) had 
the temerily to break a lauce with Mr. Howard on 
the question of hybridity, goiDg the length of stating 
that he no more believed that Mr. Howard was infalli- 
ble than was the old gentleman (Pio Nono) he (the 
editor) had seen at Rome. Mr. Howard, whose religious 
stand-point is at the antipodes of ecclesiastical hier- 
