Juke i, 1892.] THE TROPICAL AGRiCULTURIST. 879 
shoots below into the huge iron rollers driven by 
steam, and confistiDg of two Inrge flut tat'les moving 
in rapid rotating motioo. Usuallj half-an hour suffices, 
but in cool weather it is often extended to an hour. 
The third prooees is the fermentiufj; stage- This ia 
a most important process, as uii<5er-termen(ation pro- 
duces poor quality tes, and ovcrfermentatiou is fatal 
to quality and gives tour tea. The leaf is ftrmented 
to a bright even sa'mom colour, and when the correct 
stage is reached, it papees into ihe drying machine, 
called a Harry & Gibbs' long, cylindrical, rifled dryer. 
The tea leaf once inside io preeipated round and 
round for about lo minutes in an intense heat, and 
after the whole tea le-f has pasted through, it goes 
through the same treatment a second time more 
rapidly, aad issues from the machine virtually as 
tea, as we know it. The remaining process ia the 
fourth one, viz., the tifting. Vnrioua sinves, with of 
course differently-sized meshes, produce the fine or 
rough qualities in the tea ; the rougher kinds being 
the poor sorts and chenper oues. 
These large worlcs at Kearsuey are well worth a 
detiiiled visit. Ample lofting accommodation, two huge 
Steaui rollers, two patent dryers, sifters and euttinf? 
machines, with two steam engines of not less than 10 
horse power, do the ever increasing work. Large store 
rooms, where an enormous slock of tea ia kept in bins, 
with a lerge packing department, with busy children 
packing up the fragrant leaf and labelling packets for 
outside trade form a busy and most interesliL'g scene. 
Mr. Hulelt's sturdy sons have built nearly the whole 
of these works, including a large steam Bf.w mil , where 
the trees from the estate are cut up until they issue 
as neiit packing cases and also exiensive stabling. Over 
200 Indians arc employed on the estate, who are in 
charge of Sird.ir Poniah Pilluy, a learned Be: galese, 
who, besides supervisiog his flock, is quite capable of 
entering into » philosophio.il argumerit with the visitor. 
Keareney Estate, its proprietor aud his family show 
a most remi-.rkable illcstration of the old proverb, 
" Unity is strength; " and that the indnstry initiated by 
Mr. Hiilett and his family will prosper to a still grea'er 
extent muft be the sincere wish of evervcna who 
desires to help in tho local watchword .- " Adv&noe 
fair Natal." 
—Natal Mercury. L. W. 
0 
MR. A. ROSS'S PAPER ON PERU. 
MB, CLEMENTS MABKHAM ON CINCHONA PRICES. 
^t Monday's meeting of the Royal Geographical 
Society Mr. Alexander Ross read an interesting paper 
on his journeyings in Peru. Mr. Ross is a Ceylon 
planter, who formed one of a small party of English- 
men sent out to Central Peru last year under the 
auspices of the Peruvian Corporation (Limited) — to 
whom a considerable part of assets of the country 
has been pawned by its rulers— for the purpose of 
investigating its economic resources from a planters' 
point of view. In the course of his paper Mr. Ross 
observed that he had come across a Peruvian coffee- 
grower who had many cinchonas around his coffee- 
fields, and who told him that fifteen years ago, when 
he started coffee-planting, the land was covered with 
large numbers of the same trees ; but, as he did not 
know what they were, he simply had them cut down 
and burnt. (N.I3. — South American cinchona bark was 
worth from 3s to .'js per lb. at that time.) Mr. Clements 
Markham was present at the meeting, and took part 
in the discussion. In tho course of his remarks he 
called attention to the fact that whatever economic 
products Peru produces are usually the best of their 
kind ; and ho instanced coffee, rubber (the Para rubber 
of connnercc, much of which is really produced in 
Eastern Peru), wool, and cinchona. Although of tho 
4:!,000 bales of bark imported into London in a year 
only 8,000 canio from South America, ho said, it was 
a significant fact that East Indian bark did not now 
rise in value above lid per lb., whereas that grown 
in Peru realised f s Sid to 'is per lb. Tho moral he 
deduced from those ligures was that " if you (tho 
Peruvian (.'orporation) midertako the cultivation of 
cinchona on your now laud in Peru, tho average 
prices v>f barU">YiU it(,lvnuco t^i w9io thau ilguWo o 
what they arc now." It may seem presumptuous to 
contradict Mr. Markham on a subject upon which 
he is so eminent an authority ; but we must take 
leave to challenge these statements of his. 
The cinchona barks to which he apparently 
alludes are the " Loxa " and "Huanoco" barks of 
commerce, which realise high prices (though not 
so high as he stated) not on account of their 
richness in quinine — which is much less than that of 
good Eibt Indian bark — but simply because there ia 
a certain demand for them in feme Continental 
countries for certain pharmaceutical purposes — a de- 
mand which rests, we think, entirely upon a fanciful 
basis, and which would be altosether unequal to the 
absorption of large quantities than ere now placed 
upon the market. Apart from this, the cost of carriage 
and of harvestii:g these barks is eo great that they 
could never pay if grown as quinine barks. The 
cultivated Oalisayas of Bolivia have cot paid their 
growers for a long time. Only last year, as we an- 
nounced at the time, one of the principal among them 
had to give up the struggle, and aboat the worst use, 
we should think, to which the Peruvian Corporation 
could put their acquisitioua would be to plant cinohon* 
upon them. 
THE PIONEEES OF THE EASTBEN CINCHONA INDUSTRY. 
Mr. Ross's statement that "tho valna,ble medicinal 
plant cinchona was first introduced to the Eastern 
world by Mr. Clements Markham" is also one which in 
justice to a distinguished botanist now living in ripe 
old age and in close retirement in a small German 
country town, should not pass unqualified, especi- 
ally ae the services rendered by Mr. Markham him 
self are so conspicuous that his brilliant reputation 
can suffer nothing by the recapitulation of the strict 
facta of the case. Leaving out of account the in- 
troductiou ia the forties of cinchona plants arid seads 
by AVeddell into France, and by certain unnamed 
individuals into Algeria, as these efforts led to no 
practical result, the honour of first introducing the 
cinchona plant into the "Eastern world" belongs un- 
questionably to Justus Karl Hasskar), a German 
botanist sent to South America in quest of the plant 
by the Dutch Government, and who, efier a long 
and perilous expedition, delivered twenty-ono War- 
dian cases of cinchona seedlings on board of a Dutch 
man-of-war, sent there expressly to receive them, 
in the port of Callao on August 21st, 1854, some 
years before BIr. Markham set out from Europe. 
Hasskari's surviving plant reached ,Tava in December, 
1854. BIr. Blarkham shipped the 456 seedlings which 
were the pioneers of the cinchona industry in British 
India at the port of Islay, in South America, in Juno 
1860. But in the moantime a quantitv of Lancifolia 
seed, procured by Kareten in Colombia, had also 
been sent to Java on account of the Dutch Govern- 
ment in 1854. BIr. Markham's exploits might also 
have been ran close, but for untoward accidents, by 
BIr. George Ledgtr, who, about the same time as 
BIr. Blarkham himself, succeeded in collecting a sup- 
ply of seeds and plants in Southern Peru, but whose 
expedition was destroyed by Indianu on its way to 
the onast. It is owing principally to BIr. Blarkham's 
powerful advocacy of the claims of his less fortunate 
rival that Mr. Ledger's morila in the pioneer- work ; 
of the cinchona industry have been somewhat ttrdily 
acknowledged as they deserve. Fiiickiger and Hau- 
bury, in tho 1879 edition of tho " Pharmacographia." 
for instance, make no mention whatever of Mr. 
Ladger'a expeditions, — Chemist and Druggist, April ls,t. 
Salk op Oeylon Golden Tips in Sydney. — The 
Queenslander of 2nd April says : — 
Messrs. Blurrell Bros., of Sydney, have forwarded 
us a sample of the golden tip Ceylon tea, which was 
offered at Blesera. Eraser and Co.'s toa sale last weak 
on account of Blessra. Parhury, Henty, aud Co., and of 
which they became tho purchasers after brisk competi- 
tion. Tho prii o paid was oZs per lb. A larger price 
for a similar Baniple has been obtained in Blolbourne, 
but this is the highest sum cvc-r paid for tea in tho 
Sydri.y marki t. Thu tea ia of excellent ll ivour, having 
that delicate aroma which is a distinctive feature of 
tUo Geylou leaf. 
