49 
before that, in 1854, the Indian Government had begged from the 
Java plantations some of their cuttings, which were most liberally 
given. Owing to the superiority of climate, the Indian Government 
up to 18G2 had succeeded seven times better than the Dutch, and 
in that year there were actually planted out on the Neilgherry Hills 
more than 72,000 plants of 11 different species of this invaluable 
tree. Unfortunately, the principal part of the Dutch plantation is 
useless, being formed of the worthless species of the C. Pahudiana; but 
they are remedying their mistakes, and making great progress. 
Chinchona cultivation is also fairly started in Ceylon, and I have no 
doubt that in process of time a plantation of 150 acres of the chin¬ 
chona there will be more profitable than one double the size of 
coffee. Thus, while three or four earnest, but high-minded men, 
have toiled and passed through the troubles of hunger and thirst, the 
sword and nakedness, and the perils of the sea, to do a work which 
only the law of their own natures imposed upon them, and the 
reward for which is only what some esteem as empty fame—the 
world has been blessed, some of its useless soil made fruitful, its 
naked hills made to laugh and sing, and myriads of men and women, 
whoso lot of life is to labour in fever-smitten swamps, are provided 
with a power to defeat an insidious enemy which rests not till it has 
them in the grasp of an agonizing death. These are somo of the 
triumphs of the art of acclimatisation, which give lustre to its labours, 
and might and dignity to its name. 
ENGLAND’S DEBT TO ACCLIMATISERS. 
Head by James Smith, Esq., at a Meeting held July 19,18G4. 
I think it may not be unserviceable to remind those who regard 
acclimatisation as the new-fangled hobby of a few crochetty enthu¬ 
siasts, that it has been practised in England for a period of 1200 
years—dating from the time at which the first wheat was sown in 
her soil and that, up to the commencement of the sixteenth century, 
at which period great efforts seem to have been made for the intro¬ 
duction of exotic flowers, fruits, and vegetables, the mother country 
was singularly destitute of all these; her population subsisting, as 
some of the early settlers of this colony did, upon beef, mutton, and 
damper. Indeed, there is a striking similarity between the condition 
of England in the dawn of her civilization and that of Australia at 
the present time. She was both a pastoral and a gold-producing 
country ; and her exports consisted of gold, silver, tin, copper, wool, 
and horses. Not to pursue this parallel further, however, I will at 
once proceed to point out what acclimatisation has done for England 
in regard to fruits, flowers, and esculents. The very rose which we 
adopt as a national emblem, and profess to consider so purely English, 
is an alien, and was brought over from France, Flanders, and Italy. 
The honeysuckle which garlands the hedgerows and overruns the 
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