726 
THE  TROPICAL  AGRICULTURIST. 
[May  i,  1893. 
CINCHONA  REPORT. 
(From  the  Chemist  and  Druggist.) 
London,  March  23. 
Cinchona. — The  sales  of  cinchona-  bark  which  were 
hel  here  on  Tuesday  were  again  rather  large,  the  twelve 
catalogues  coutainiDg  over  3,0l)0 
packages  of  Bark,  divided 
as  follows  : — 
Packages 
Packages- 
Ceylon  cinchona 
800  of  which  656  were  sold 
East  Indian  cinchona 
1,659 
, 1,505 
Java  cinchena 
85  , 
. 85 
West  African  cinchona 
265  , 
„ 265  „ 
Bouth  American  cin- 
chona 
292 
, 254  ,, 
3,101 
2,765 
The  assortment  of  bark  was  hardly  up  to  the  average, 
although  the  poorer  Ceylon  kinds  were  but  sparingly 
represented.  There  w..s  a smaller  proportion  than  usual 
of  grey  bark,  but  East  Indian  Ledgers  (of  rather  low 
average  quality)  were  plentiful.  A feature  of  this  sale 
as  it  has  been  of  the  two  or  three  previous  auctions,  was 
the  inclusion  in  it  of  a consideroble  proportion  of 
old  stock,  imported  in  1886  and  1889,  part  of  which 
was  now  worked  off  at  figures  that  can  hardly  have  paid 
more  than  the  warehousing  expenses.  At  the  beginning 
the  tone  was  rather  dull,  but  it  speedily  improved  and 
kept  moderately  active  throughout  the  greater  part  of 
the  sales.  The  average  unit  was  quite  as  high  as  that 
of  the  preceding  sales— say  Id  per  lb. 
The  following  are  the  approximate  quantities  purchased 
by  tie  principal  buyers  : - 
Lb. 
A gents  for  the  Auerbach  works  ...  ...  172,010 
Agents  for  the  Mannheim  and  Amsterdam  works  146,719 
Agents  for  the  Brunswick  works  ...  ...  96,472 
Agents  for  Ihe  Paris  works  ...  ...  75,215 
Agents  for  the  Frankfort-o/Main  and  Stuttgart 
works  ...  ...  47,s3l 
Messrs.  Howard  & Sons  ...  ...  22,880 
Agents  for  the  American  and  Italian  works  ...  13, <30 
Sundry  druggists  ...  ...  54.827 
Total  quantity  of  bark  sold  ...  ...  628,887 
Bought  in  or  withdrawn  ...  ...  69,842 
Total  quantity  offered  ...  ...  698,229 
It  should  be  remembered  that  the  weight  of  bark  pur- 
chased is  no  criterion  as  to  the  quantity  of  quinine  ac- 
quired by  the  buyer. 
COFFEE  IN  THE  STRAITS. 
Coffee  planting  in  the  Straits  Settlements  may  be 
said  to  date  from  the  arrival  of  the  first  Ceylon 
planter  in  the  Colony,  who,  on  the  failure  of  the 
industry  in  Ceylon,  came  over  and  settled  chiefly  in 
Johore  and  Singapore. 
The  results  of  those  early  ventures  induced  Mr. 
T.  H.  Hill,  one  of  the  first  and  most  enterprising 
of  the  Ceylon  planters,  to  prospect  the  other  Native 
States  with  a view  to  planting  operations,  the  Govern- 
ment granting  him  large  concessions  of  land  in 
Sungei  Ujong,  Selangor  and  Perak  as  a Pioneer 
Planter,  a title  which  he  well  deserves,  having  been 
the  first  to  successfully  cultivate  Liberian  coffee  in 
these  three  States. 
In  1882  Mr.  Hill,  then  managing  the  Ampang  Tin 
Mines,  selected  and  took  up  some  land  near 
Kuala  Lumpur  which  he  planted  up  with  Liberian 
coffee,  pepper,  tea  and  other  tropical  trees. 
Mr.  Evans,  who  died  some  years  after  of  cholera 
in  Perak,  was  the  first  Superintendent  on  this 
the  first  coffee  estate  in  Selangor,  which  was  ap- 
propriately named  “ Weld’s  Hill,"  after  the  late 
Sir  Frederick  Weld,  then  Governor  of  the  Straits 
Settlements.  This  estate  is  now  almost  entirely  under 
Liberian  coffee,  there  being  only  a few  acres  of 
pepper  left,  which  is  being  gradually  worked  out  as 
the  proprietors  evidently  find  coffee  at  $35  a pikulpays 
very  much  better'than  pepper  at  $10. 
Messrs.  Hill  and  Rathborne  next  selected  and 
planted  “ Ginting  Bedai  ” and  “ Batu  Caves  ” 
Estates.  Ginting  Bedai,  situated  above  the  pass  of 
that  name  on  the  main  mountain  range,  at  an  ele- 
vation of  between  two  and  three  thousand  feet,  was 
planted  with  coffee  (Arabica),  but  had  to  be  quite 
abandoned  before  any  results  could  be  obtained,  as 
it  was  found  impossible  in  the  absence  of  roads  to 
maintain  a labour  force  some  23  miles  from  Kuala 
Lumpur  in  the  heart  of  the  jungle.  Some  trees 
that  were  then  planted  may  even  now  be  seen  strug- 
gling for  life  amongst  the  native  jungle. 
Batu  Caves  Estate  is  a stretch  of  some  2,850  acres 
of  flat  land  lying  round  the  base  of  the  Batu  Caves, 
from  which  it  takes  its  name.  At  first  there  were  only 
some  12  acres  of  coffee  (Liberian)  planted  and  a few 
trees  of  cocoa,  but  within  the  last  three  years  the 
proprietors  have  considerably  increased  their  planting 
operations.  In  1883  Stephenson  opem-d  the  estate  of 
“ Beverlac  ” at  Klang.  This  estate— along  with 
“ Tremelbye,”  “ Enterprise  ” and  “ Glenmarie.'  which 
are  situated  in  the  same  District  and  all  opened  about 
the  same  time — was  planted  with  pepper,  but  the  later 
clearings  have  been  planted  with  Liberian  coffee. 
From  1884  to  1889  no  new  estates  were  opened,  but  a 
few  Javanese  and  Kuantan  Malays  settled  in  different 
parts  of  the  State  and  planted  up  an  acre  or  two  round 
their  houses,  the  most  extensive  of  these  perhaps  being 
the  group  lying  between  the  Racecourse  and  Lincoln 
Estate.  Towards  the  end  of  1888  the  late  Mr.  William 
Duugal,  Manager  of  the  Chartered  Bank  in  Singapore, 
Mr.  Sword  of  the  Straits  Trading  Company.  Mr.  Currie 
of  the  Borneo  Company  and  myself  obtained  a grant 
of  1,500  acres  of  land  in  the  Setapak  Vail  y,  in  three 
blocks  of  500  acres  each,  named,  respectively,  *■  H»w- 
thornden,”  ‘‘ Koslin”  and  “ LiLcoln”  after  those 
places  at  home. 
This  was  immediately  followed  hy  the  opening  of 
Wardieburu”  by  Messrs.  O.  and  R.  Meikle  in  1889. 
This  estate  is  thoroughly  Scottish,  aa  its  name  wonid 
lard  one  to  expeot.  Named  after  the  proprietors’ 
beantiful  home  near  Edinburgh,  it  is  kept  in  the  highest 
state  of  cultivation  for  which  Soottish  farmers  are 
everywhere  famed,  and  the  good  old  Scottish  title  of 
“ Laird”  has  been  bestowed  by  his  brother  planters  on 
one  of  the  proprietors. 
At  the  eod  of  1889  Mr.  H.  Huttenhaoh  acquired 
two  small  patches  of  coffee  near  Kuala  Lumpur,  one 
of  some  10  acres,  about  half  a mile  out  of  town,  from 
Mr.  Bristowe,  late  of  the  Land  Offioe,  which  he  has 
called  “ Selangor  Coffee  Garden,”  the  other,  some 
three  miles  along  the  Selangor  Railway  from  some 
Javanese  which  he  named  “Batu”  Estate,  both  these 
properties  he  has,  with  his  usual  enterprise  very 
much  improved  and  extended.  Towards  the  end  of 
1890  another  estate  was  opened  in  the  Setapak  Vialley 
by  the  Mes-rs,  Glassford,  who  had  had  some  exper  ence 
of  ooffre  planting  in  Southern  Iudia,  aud  they  named 
their  estate  “The  Mount,”  after  a property  of  that 
name  in  Fifeshire.  A few  months  later  Mr.  M. 
A.  Stonor  opened  •*  Klang  Gates”  Estate  near 
the  rookv  gorge  through  which  the  waters  of  the 
Sungei  Klang  flow.  About  this  time  Mr.  G.  Murray 
Campbell  of  Messrs.  Campbell  & Co.  at  that  time 
engaged  on  the  Railway  Extensions  in  this  State 
applied  for  land  from  Government,  and  finally 
selected  a block  to  the  east  of  Lincoln  Estate,  but  which 
was  not  opened  until  some  months  later.  Th  s wasnamed 
“Aberscross”  Estate  after  the  place  where  Mr.  Camp- 
bell first  saw  the  light  and  where  his  forefathers  lived 
before  the  history  of  Scotland  began.  This  estate 
has  been  largely  extended  since  the  first  opening. 
The  next  block  taken  up  was  by  Mr.  E.  V.  Carey, 
acting  on  behalf  of  some  influential  Ceylon  gentle- 
men and  himself,  early  in  1892.  The  land  selected 
was  in  the  Gombak  Yalley,  opening  ont  of  the 
Setapack  Valley,  and  amounted  to  1,000  acres,  to 
which  he  gave  the  name  of  “New  Amherst,”  after 
his  old  Ceylon  estate.  The  last  estate  opened  in 
Selangor,  “Kent,”  the  property  of  Mr.  A.  B.  Ltke, 
is  on  the  Batu  Road,  and  originally  this  land  formed 
part  of  Messrs.  Hill  and  Rathborne’s  concession  at 
Batu  Caves. 
The  steady  increase  iu  the  number  of  0‘ffee  estates 
argues  well  for  the  future  of  Selangor  as  a coffee- 
producing  country. 
The  estates  in  the  Kuala  Lumpur  District  aloue 
now  r< present  an  area  of  some  7,000  aoresof  whioh 
over  1,500  acres  are  planted  with  Liberiau  coffee. 
— Selangor  Journal*  F,  A,  Toynbee, 
