INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
137 
which, our plantations promise to afford; for although the culture of the 
Cinchona was thought of and even feebly attempted so far back as the year 
1852, it was not until after extensive plantations were commenced in Java in 
1854, that our Government was stimulated to take the matter actively in 
hand;—and it is to the experiments, the failures, the errors of these first 
Dutch cultivators that we are indebted for much of the success already at¬ 
tained. 
The chief plantations in British India, let me remind you, are those on the 
IMeilgherry Hills, near Madras, the most elevated mountain range in India 
southward of the Himalaya. “The climates of the Heilgherry Hills,” ob¬ 
serves Markham, “ are the most delightful in the world, and it may be said of 
this salubrious region, with its equable seasons, what the Persian poet said of 
Hung, ‘ the warmth is not heat, and the coolness is not cold.’ ” 
By a parliamentary return it appears that in May, 1866, the number of 
Cinchona plants in the Government plantations in this locality was 1,233,645, 
of which nearly 300,000 belonged to the species yielding Bed Bark, 758,000 
to that affording Pale or Crown Bark, and 37,000 to Cinchona J3alls ay a, This, 
it must be remembered, by no means indicated the full extent of Cinchona 
culture on the Neilgherries, since there were in addition considerable planta¬ 
tions belonging to private individuals. From Mr. Broughton’s report pub¬ 
lished in April of last year, which is the latest information to which I have 
access, it appears that the number of plants of the Bed Bark in the Govern¬ 
ment plantations in that locality was at that date 800,000, which is an enor¬ 
mous advance on the Beturn from which I have just quoted. Other planta¬ 
tions have been formed in Wynaad, Coorg, on the Pulney Hills, and in Tra- 
vancore, in British Sikkim, in the Kangra Yalley in the Punjab, and at 
Mahabaleshwur in the Bombay Presidency. In Ceylon the success that has 
attended the introduction of the Cinchona has been most marked. “Many 
thousands of plants ” writes Mr. Thwaites “ have been distributed from the 
Hakgalla Garden, and I have received most favourable reports of their per¬ 
fect health and vigorous growth; and not a single report of an opposite cha¬ 
racter has yet reached me: so that there appears to be every prospect of 
Quinine becoming before very long, one of the most important products of 
the island.” 
From the Himalaya the reports are no less remarkable. At Darjeeling, 
which, as you will remember, is one of the health-stations for the Europeans 
of Calcutta, there are now five plantations for the cultivation of Cinchona 
with an aggregate total in April last of more than 1,558,000 young trees, of 
w hich a large proportion belong to the species which furnish what are called 
Crown Bark and Bed Bark. 
But however rapid and vigorous the growth of the Cinchona in India, the 
culture of the tree would avail but little unless the bark were as rich in alka¬ 
loids as that produced in South America. 
In fact at the outset of the enterprise many persons capable of judging had 
considerable misgivings as to the results. If the young plants could be in¬ 
duced to grow, would it not be needful to wait a generation at least before 
they wouid produce bark that it would be worth while to remove ? should we 
not destroy the trees by the operation ? And if we at last got the bark, 
might not it prove deficient in those constituents which render that of South 
America so valuable? 
These surmises have happily not been verified :—in fact from the numerous 
analyses of Mr. Howard, Dr. De Yry, and Mr. Broughton, it is evident that 
the percentage of alkaloids in the bark grown in India may exceed that 
obtainable from the same sort of bark grown in its native country. Another 
point well worthy of notice is that the proportion which one alkaloid bears to 
