August i, 1890.] 
THE TR0P1CA1. A'Qfnmil.TURlST, 
i37 
To the Editor. 
BAKON VON ROSBNBEEG ON MR. LAWSON’S 
THEORY OF CANKER IN CINCHONAS 
IN INDIA : 
Practical Experiences and Advice. 
Tulliar, Devicolutn, June 6th. 
— Some time ago Mr. Lawson was asked to 
report on the canker and general decay of cinchona 
trees in the Wynaad. A good many of your readers 
must be interested in this question, I trust there- 
fore you will find space in your columns to insert 
these few lines. 
I have now seen Mr. Lawson’s report, and from 
a planter’s point of .view it is not in any way 
satisfactory. 
It is short, it is not very much to the point, 
it certainly seems misinformed in its premises, 
and illogical in its deductions. To us this would 
matter little, we could content ourselves with say- 
ing “Mr. Lawson is wrong;” certainly “we 
have learnt little from Mr. Lawson.” 
But there are planters who may be opening 
out cinchona estates, or taking them over from 
others ; or agents, who, knowing little about plant- 
ing, may insist upon taking Mr. Lawson’s report 
as gospel, having the policy he advocates carried 
out. For the sake of these a note of warning 
should be sounded. Mr. Lawson’s first conclusion 
is that cinchona estates are not sufficiently worked. 
Granted ! But who is to blame for this : not the 
producer in this, that, or the other district, but 
the large cinchona-producing community all the 
world over. The prices obtainable for produce are 
so low, that estates cannot be thoroughly worked. 
And it is here, at the very outset, that Mr. Lawson 
tumbles into his first error. He says that in 
former times, when the product paid better, it 
was right that cinchona trees should be planted 
close ; well it is just because prices are so low, 
that now only close planting pays. If we planted 
wide apart, how many lb. per acre should we get 
off clearings under 15 to 20 years old ? how could 
we make those few lb. per acre pay at a minimum 
profit ? 
Again Mr. Lawson insists upon the necessity of 
preserving the soil. Very well indeed 1 But how 
can the soil be better preserved than by covering 
it as soon as possible, i. e. by close planting and 
thinning out afterwards if necessary ? But where 
Mr. Lawson is surely entirely mistaken, is when 
he ascribes the canker in the Wynaad to poverty 
of soil only. If Ooty were unknown to Mr. 
Lawson, if he had not seen the Government 
and other plantations there, thriving in soil so poor, 
under circumstances so wretched, one might forgive 
him. But as it is the arrogance of the statement 
is delicious. He virtually seems to say : “ You in 
your Wynaad lands which are rich enough to have 
supported magnificent forests, and undeniably fine 
coffee, are not on a par with us the children of 
the higher mist whose lands never supported any- 
thing but scrubby grass and stunted rhododendrons; 
for lo and behold, with us cinchona thrives, with 
you it dies, therefore (i. a. a.) we have soil, you 
have none 1 
Mr. Lawson deigns not to go into the varieties of 
canker or diseases so named or misnamed. He 
contents himself with insinuating that those foolish 
old men, who imagined a specific disease, were utterly 
mistaken. There is none. Manure your plants 
18 
sufficiently, and they ’ll grow equally well on the 
top rock of Dodabetta, yea down unto the quay of 
Calicut. 
Mr. Lawson goes on to inform us, the ill-informed, 
that coffee and cinchona belong to the same 
species. He deduces therefrom that they thrive 
under like conditions only. Let him plant a coffee 
bush on the windblown steeps of Dodabetta, or a 
cinchona tree in the club compound of Madras, and 
they ’ll thrive as much as a Lapp would in the 
Rahara or Eamaswamy on Mount Heola. And yet 
Lapp and Ramaswamy belong to the same or forked 
radish species. And though it be true that both 
coffee and cinchona belong to the cinchonaceae 
they differ in most particulars, such as flower, seed, 
quality of barb. And chiefly they differ in the 
purposes for which we grow them, for we do want 
coffee to flower and seed, we object to it in cinchona. 
To sum up, I am positive that they cannot and 
do not necessarily thrive in the same soils and 
localities. 
And to these generalities I will add from my own 
observation. I am now living on an estate at from 
4-5,000 ft. elevation, on which both cinchona and 
coffee have been largely planted. Well, a few 
years ago, there was among them a magnificent 
field of cinchona var. condaminea. Some 4 years 
ago canker showed in a few patches, and these 
were planted up with coffee. The canker is now 
spreading, has indeed assumed alarming proportions, 
and it has been decided to plant up the whole field 
with coffee. And why ? Because in the soil which 
according to Mr. Lawson must be too poor to 
support its equal feeder cinchona, it thrives re- 
markably. 
Again, to take the reverse of the picture. Cin- 
chona (a strong grown hybrid) was planted among 
young coffee, it shared all the manuring of the 
coffee, it was planted fairly far apart, it had every 
advantage that Mr. Lawson claims for it, yet it 
died ; the coffee died not, but is flourishing. 
Again, there is a small bit of cinchona here 
fmostly Condaminea), planted in a landslip, i. e. 
land entirely denuded of its topsoil, and which has 
been considerably neglected, yet the plant seems 
thriving. 
Let us take another estate next to the foregoing. 
This was felled and planted up with cinchona. 
Ledger and Hybrids. The soil is remarkably rich, 
and good pits were made, yet now in its fifth 
year there is hardly a stick left standing. I thas 
since been, and is being planted up with coffee, 
and the coffee is remarkably vigorous. 
And now let me turn to another side of the 
district, a few mile s away, a few hundred feet 
higher. There cinchona, though closely planted, is 
perfection, such as probably Mr. Lawson has never 
seen. It has gone out in a patch here and there, 
but the rest after 10 years and several oioppings 
looks perfectly healthy, and this in spite of the 
fact, that in one two places that I know of, it was 
not even pitted for, but only dibbled in. And 
there cinchona even now pays, but it would not 
pay, if it required cultivation, beyond weeding, 
and perhaps an occasional surface digging, 
Mr. Lawson’s report in fact comes to this, he 
says : the patient is sick because he is starving 
as for any sickness, he cannot discover it, and 
therefore cannot diagnose it. There is no harm in 
the latter ; we may be as unable to give the 
diagnosis as Mr. Lawson is, but we will eat our 
hats, and planters’ hats are proverbial, if aoluai 
disease does not exist or if it is due to want oi 
food material chiefly or only. 
Cinchona does thrive in poor soils, as far as 
absence of canker is concerned — poor at all events 
in humus, viz. on the Pulney Hills or even oa 
