774 
THE TROnCAL AGRICULTURIST. 
'May ], 1899. 
QUININE liXCITED. 
SOI.D AN'U KEtjOLI) AT FKVKHI.Sil n.VT);.s. 
Quinine lias had a rollicking week of business, 
" forging a head like Pattison s wliisky " said a 
'Change frcquentei- the otlier day, but ''forging" 
suggests too much effoj t for the piogress of the 
alkaloid, and the connecting of Pattison's with 
quinine has an nnfortnnate inapuropriatenesK. 
Quinine has sold and re-sold at feveiish rates 
in the second-hand mai-ket, and is now on the 
border of Is (id an ounce. More noteworthy even 
is the fact that the Gennan couibiiiation of 
makers have jjut up the!)- price to prettv nearly 
the same figure, and, of course, the chief Knglisii 
manufacturers have advanced, maintaining a 
dignified reserve as to how much they sell and 
■whom they sell to. 
This is the result of eight weeks' influence on 
the situation that existed when quinine was lO.'.d., 
and we vvei'C anticipating tlie advance that is 
now a fact. No -wondei- tiinid spectators of the 
rush are shaking their heads and proplicsying a 
slump. Still, there is j)lenty of conlidence in 
others, and these- we nmst say, generally the 
best-informed in the subject— that vve shall" have 
quinine worth 2s. bel'oie the year is out. Kveii 
the more cautious ones, who, nevertheless, are 
not afraid to look facts in the face, ask one an- 
other whether we are not rai)idly anproaching a 
very serious scarcity in thesnp])ly of l)ai-k. 
Of course, tliese thoughtful observers do not say 
this because of the s))eculation. That is really a 
result, not a cause of such reflections. Spe- 
culation, like it is always doing, is anticipating 
future events. All this Ijtiying and selling of 
quinine that has been going on during the last two 
months is merely the constant turning over of 
the same parcels of the article. The coiisumptive 
demand is stagnant compared with this sjiecula- 
tive activity. All the same, the latter rests for 
its justification ultimately on the principle that 
second-hand quinine could always go into con- 
sumption at, say, 2d. per ox. below the makers' 
price, and a second-hand price of Is. Od. on Ibis 
basis is really only warrantable on the supposi- 
tion that makers will, shortly, either not be able 
to sell at all or will have to sell at 2d. above 
that. Hence all this selling and re-selling in view 
of future upward movement. No one would buy 
quinine to-day in the second-hand market for im" 
mediate consumption, for a better bargain could 
be made with makers. 
But there is the usual danger in this speculation 
that it may go too far ; that the second-hand price 
may anticipate too much ; or that it mav go so fast 
that a reaction will set in and the weakness of 
nervous holders will cause the market to collapse 
at a time when it has got too far ahead of natural 
ett'ects, which, if they could he awaited, would 
support it. And it is to answer the question 
whether the speculation has gone too far now that 
some are eagerly watching the reports as to ship- 
ments of bark, and asking, as we have said, wlie- 
ther all these signs of great future shortage are to 
be trusted. 
We ask ourselves the same question, and we can 
only say that unless some extraordinary artificial 
arrangement is at work in .Tava there is only an 
affirmative ansNv er to be given. If we turn round 
to all the possible places from which bark can be 
got we sea none that is so situated as to be able to 
-supply the market if Java falls short. That ought 
to be too obvious to need stating. But people talk 
in an absurd way about this, that, and the other 
country being able to bring forward bark if the 
price goes mvich higher. Can India put forth more 
than she did last year, when she came up to her 
highest year's production, and eftected— nothing ? 
She did not put bark down a fraction. Can Africa 
do anything, seeing that she has made the mistake 
of others and given all her attention to a comjjara- 
tively little-needed bark, because it is easy to 
cultivate ? 
Of Bolivian cultivation theip was hoi>e ouce • but 
even here there has been disappointment, and of 
bouth .\merica generally it lu.iv be Kai<i tlial bark 
inust very considerably advance before it will fie 
imluced to collect again. M'e have little truHt 
«o thy iiiforimition as to its st^.re^. and ao 
^MII leave alone the <,neMion how far it in 
exh.iu.sted. In the matter of remuneration for 
collection, it must be reiiiemt>ered that men oft*u 
once having started a business, continue it loaK 
r i';[, ' , " hid. it iK barelv 
nof lable to begin it, and the j.rico that made 
M k collectors and. exporters in America de.ist 
^Mll liave to be materially increased la-fore thev 
begin again. Tlio.se who know at « )i«t Ji-ur^ 
South American bark did not pay to cone<. t will 
al.so know hat we can go on putting up bark 
a great deal more before collectors will onrani^ 
t io.se anluous journeys that are ixniuiml to 
obtain Soutli American bark. ^ w> 
Ceylon is not worth thinking of, but ho deH- 
j)erafe are some in their desire to take a pesKi- 
nistic view of bark and so singular arv others, 
that the most easily negligable factor in the 
wn-l^u'^V V"*" ^ve must spend most 
\»or(ls. We have given our contf mporaries tlie 
lead 111 the proper direction on this subject but 
to get them to go in the right way seems futile 
judging by the hopeless tangle into whi,.|, one 
of them gets Itself. To talk seriously alwut Cevlon 
in tlie situation was, we thought, oniv possible 
in such a case as that of an acquainfuue on 
Change who gravely asked us the other dav if 
we had noticed that Cevlon had exported in the 
first week of Februar>- as much bark as inthe 
yhole of January. When he was gentiv taken 
in liand he exnlained that he did not Vt the 
Java figures-only the Ceylon! However irood 
was done in his case, and even something has 
been effected in the case of the contem|)orarv for 
we fiave at last managed to make it see that 'the 
l.erman purchases and sales are the key of tlie 
situation; but this les.son has taken so" long to 
penetrace that the learner has forgotten whenc« 
lie received it. 
There is left Java herself. Here it ismostdifti- 
cult toget at anything like an accurate figure 
for the possible out put at present. We do know 
thougl, that after a year of large shipments at 
puces lower than the present, .Java is onlr send- 
ing small supplies to the European market and 
what It IS sending is better bark. The natural 
conclusion IS that it has not got more bark to 
send, and this is true, unless, to come hack to 
pur earlier statement, the Java planters have 
been induced to do what they have never been in- 
duced to do before-/.p..keep bark back when thev 
are getting good pay for it. "O'e do not sav such ii 
thing IS impossifjle, and after the recent" visit of 
the planters emissary, an arrangement of this 
kind miglit .seem likely, but we doubt very much 
Its having been made, and. in the ab.sence of other 
intorniation, look upon the pre.sent circumstances 
as leading fast to a scarcity that has never been 
known in the bark maT^et.— British and Colonial 
JJriiAjfjist. 
JManuring TEA.-We are interested in lenrnino- 
tiiat the experience of Jlr. Melville White fully 
conlirins that of Mr. Joseph Eraser as repoi te'd 
yesteiday. Mr. Geo. Greig, in Maskeliya and 
Uiinliula, has also confirmaloiy evidence. Mr 
W. D. Bosanquet again reports tiiat experi- 
ments made by him during tiie past three years 
bear out the conclusions arrived at, especially as 
to Potash being an important element. Pot.asli and 
Phosphoric acid he has found quite inert with- 
out Nitrogen, and Nitrogen most efTecdve 
when combined witii a considerable proportion of 
Potash and Phosphoric Acid— more especiailv 
the tormei',— 6'. 0., April 7. ^ 
