May 2, 1892.1 THE TROPICAL Al3R1t5tJLTUmST, 
Sri 
favonrable competition irith other in the mark ts of 
thft world. 
SuoAB.— The growth of BDgfir-cane is consideratily 
on the iucrense oiid (luring the past year, large areas 
in a completely new district have teen put under 
cultivation, this beirg the forerunnfr of supar works 
of considerable magnitude. — Fiji Times, Teb. 3rd, 
SCENES FROM EASTERN DRUG- 
PLANTATIONS. 
The scenes represented in the following illustra- 
tions are reproduced from Dr. Alexander Tschirch's 
book " Indische Heil und Nutzpflanzen, und deren 
Cultur," * upon which we comment in another part 
of this issue. The work contains no less than 128 
illustrations, reproduced from photographs, mostly 
taken by the author himself. The tirst view shows 
a cinchona-plantation in Java. The little seedlings 
in the foreground are a Succirubra nursery. When 
the time arrives to plant out the seedlings in a re- 
gular plantation two coolies carefully remove the 
covering of the young shoots, pull them out by the 
roots, taking care first to moisten the earth round 
about, so that it shall adhere to the roots, place the 
shoots on a tray, and cover them with Pisang leaves 
to protect them. Two other coolies carry the tray 
as quickly as possible to the plantation-ground, 
where the seedlings are at once replanted under 
European supervision. The trees in the background 
are a full-grown plantation of Civchona Lcdgtriana, 
Moens. While exploring the bark estates in Western 
Java, Dr. Tschirch was disagreeably reminded that 
living among the cinchonas gives no immunity from 
fever. On one occasion he was suddenly seized with 
malaria while standing under a magnificent Ledger- 
tree in Bandong, and had to ward off the at- 
tack by swallowing compressed quinine tablets, which 
the local pharmacist obtained all the way from Ber- 
lin. The tirst illustration on page 309 shows the 
late Mr. B. Moens, the assistant-directer of the 
Java Government gardens, to whose indomitable 
perseverance the cinchona industry in that island 
owes much of its present position, reclining in the 
shade of his own cinchona-tree of the Ledger variety 
which bears his name. The plantation is a typical 
Javanese Kinatuin, or cinchona-garden. 
GRAFTING. 
Great attention has been paid in Java lately to 
the intermixture of the cinchona varieties by graft- 
ing. The tirst grafting experiments were made as 
far back as 1866, in Teysmann's days. Director 
Van Gorkoni afterwards devoted much time to the 
pursuit of this mode of culture, and the present 
director of the Government gardens, Mr. Van Ro- 
niunde, believes that the grafting-process has a 
considerable future, in proof of which conviction he 
has caused it to be extensively resorted to in some 
of the gardens under his care — at Tirtasari, for in- 
stance. The grafting of the slow-growing Ledgers 
upon the strong, hardy, and quick-growing S'ncciruhras 
has not, up to the present time, yielded favour- 
able results, for it is found that a considerable 
pi'oportion of the cinchonidine of the Succirubra is 
absorbed by the Ledger-graft, which is originally 
wanting in, or but sparingly provided with, this 
alkaloid ; while, contrariwise, the quinine from the 
Lodger passes into the parent stem, the result being 
a tree containing less quinine but more cinchoni- 
dine than the trunk, a transformation which, need- 
less to say, is not a desirable one. 
Dr. Tscliirch gives some striking instances of what 
we may term this alkaloid-exchange. A Ledger tree, 
raised from ,\inorican secjd, yielded 9 79 per cent, of 
quinino ; grafted upon a Succirubra, the combination 
resulted in the production of a bark analysing only 
7':!"2 per cent, quinine, but also 2'77 per cent, cin- 
clionidino. ]''roni another Ledger, yielding in the 
natural stale 11 1)1 per cent, quinine and no 
cinchonidine, grafting upon Succirubra produced a 
• l7i(lisclic Hril mill \iit:pflnir:cii, niii l>r. AU'j-. 
'J'schirch. Horlin, 11. CJaortncr's Vcrlagsbuchhaiullung. 
loth cover, octavo, 2'2:( pp., 128 Uust. 30 marks. 
bark yielding 8'61 per cent, of quinine and I'll per 
cent, cinchonidine. On the other hand the succirubra 
trees become richer in quinine by grafting, the bark 
of one tree increasing its percentage from l-.'S to 
2-7 per cent., that of another from 1-.5 to 1'6.5 per 
cent. The book contains altogether fifteen illustra- 
tions showing the cultivation and preparation of 
cinchona, while the tea-culture claims seventeen, 
coffee six, and cocoa four. 
NUX VOMICA. 
The next view shows a full-grown jSirycZ/jiO.? tree in 
the Government Gardens at Buitenzorg, nearBatavia. 
The tree is a native of Ceylon ; it attains a height 
pf about 30 feet, and, notwithstanding its at- 
tractive appearance in the photograph, the author 
describes it as neither imposing nor beautiful 
the flowers, plain, insignificant, of a yellow-green 
colour, contributing nothing to heighten the effect of 
the tree.* 
THE TAMAMND. 
The Tamariudiis indzca, of which the illustration 
shows a full-grown specimen in a thick plantation in 
.Java is a tree of very different appearance. Neither in 
Java nor in Ceylon is it cultivated in regular gardens, 
but the beauty of its growth and the amplitude of its 
foliage have brought it into favour as a shade-giving 
tree. The tamarind appears at its best in the season 
when it is covered with its myriads of delicate flowers, 
or in the fruiting period, when thousands of long, fawn- 
coloured fruit-pods droop down from their long stalks. 
A tamarind-tree .50 or 60 feet in height is by no means 
rare but this altitude is only attained after many years, 
the tree being one of very slow growth. The great 
square in Batavia, the '■ Koningsplein," is shaded by 
magnificent avenues of tamarind-trees. 
BENZOIN. 
The benzoin-tree [Styrax Benzoin, Dryander)— in Ma- 
lay, " Kayoo Keminyan"— is anativeof Simiatra and 
Java. The tree grows to moderate size— the specimen 
represented in the picture is about 40 feet high— its 
leaves, flowers, and fruit are of a plain grey colour, 
which does not add to its dignity or beauty. A Dutch 
planter in Java has established a benzoin planta- 
tion of 70,000 trees on the northern slope of the 
Salak volcano ; but, although he imported labourers 
from Sumatra on purpose, and the mode of prepar- 
ing the gum followed in Sumatra is known in all parti- 
culars, the culture does not appear to flourish very well 
in Java. 
THE NUTMEG. 
The last picture represents a group of trees in the 
Government Botanical Gardens in Java. The two 
large trees to the right are nutmeg-trees {Mynstica 
frayrans. Houtt.) The left part of the illustration 
shows Elcttaria speciosa, some of the smaller Zingi- 
beraceae. The nutmeg-tree, says Dr. Tschirch, re- 
minds the European traveller of the vegetation of his 
own home more closely than almost any other tropical 
plant. Its handsome, well-proportioned stem, the 
elegant pyramid of its riohly-verdured crown, the 
small leaves — all these peculiarities makes him think 
of the pear-tree of his own gardens, only that every 
part of the nutmeg-tree branch-formation as well as 
outline, seems more beautiful and noble. The average 
height of the tree does not exceed 30 feet, or its 
circumference from 8 to 10 feet, though in the wild 
state it grows twice or three times as high. The nutmeg- 
tree, it is true, does not shine by the magnificence of 
its flowers, which though abundant, and of a pleasant 
orange fragrance, are small, unobtrusive, and strikino-ly 
like those of the hawthorn ; but its peach-sized, oval 
pale yellow fruit peeps kindly through the verdure and 
the vivid red arillus glancing throuyli the burst fruit 
and contrasting cft'cctivcly w itli the dark brown soed- 
husk, imparts a strout; and characteristic colour to 
the whole. The tree boars fruit and flowers simul- 
taneously almost all the year through.— 
Brugijist. 
* We thought the foliage of some young trees jicar 
iMihinlalc very pretty.— Ed. T. A. 
