224 REPORT ON THE CULTIVATION OF QUIN1FEROUS CINCHONA 
Before concluding this general Report on the experiment of cultivating Cinchona in 
Bengal during the past official year, it seems to me that, in order to form an opinion of 
the comparatively great success that has attended the operations, a short recapitulation 
of the difficulties experienced at Darjeeling is necessary. 
1st.—I laboured under the disadvantage, last year, of being quite ignorant of the nature 
of the country of British Sikhim beyond what I could learn from the accounts of Dr. Hooker, 
as well as from the collections of dried plants from Sikhim which exist in the Calcutta Her¬ 
barium. I had formed very inadequate ideas of the difficulty of reaching Darjeeling, of 
the condition of the roads leading to it, and of the resources of the Station as regards 
labour, especially such skilled labour as I required, such as native gardeners, carpenters, 
and masons. I also supposed that no difficulty would be experienced in obtaining 
abundance of land, the property of Government, in the neighbourhood of Darjeeling; 
that glass for the conservatory, and flowerpots, etc., could be procured in Darjeeling. 
Some idea, however, will be obtained of the difficulties with which the experiment had 
to contend when I state that no suitable Government-land could be got nearer than 
twelve miles from the station, and that, to reach this spot, an almost impenetrable forest 
had to be passed through, requiring every step to be cleared by Lepchas with their long 
knives. On leaving Calcutta, I had hoped that the permanent propagating house, the 
gardener’s house, and huts for the coolies, would have been finished in three months. 
Instead of which, it soon appeared that until a bridle-path, eight miles long, could be 
finished, the buildings could not even be commenced, and that, instead of three months 
being required to complete them, two years was the shortest time in which they could 
be ready. No temporary buildings could be obtained either, except barracks on the 
windy and cold crest of Sinchal, 8600 feet above the sea. Before these could be converted 
into a conservatory, glass had to be procured from Calcutta, 400 miles distant. The 
manufacture of flowerpots was also unknown at Darjeeling, so that even they had 
to be obtained from Calcutta. Then no labour of any kind could be got to supply the 
place of the two Bengalee gardeners, who insisted on returning to Calcutta within three 
months of their arrival in Darjeeling, and the European gardener had therefore to per¬ 
form all the operations of the simplest kind with his own hand, and this is still the case. 
Such an apparently easily procurable substance as white river-sand could not be got in 
Sikhim: not that none existed there, but during the rains the beds of the rivers were so 
full of water that the beds of sand were all concealed. Accordingly, a maund of sand 
was sent for from the Botanic Gardens in Calcutta. No packages of any kind ever reached 
Darjeeling from Calcutta in less than six weeks, the usual time occupied in the transit 
being two months. It will thus be seen that the commencement of Cinchona cultivation 
in Darjeeling entailed a great many preliminary operations before the propagation of 
plants could be attempted; and it is only now that, with tools, flowerpots, bell-glasses, 
and hand-frames received from Calcutta, and a determination to be contented with such 
means as are procurable in Darjeeling, that the success I have been able to report has 
been obtained. 
I am glad to be able to report that on my visiting the Cinchona nursery at Lebong in 
the end of May I found all the plants in the highest health, and that the propagation 
of all the species, except Cinchona Pahudiana , was advancing rapidly. On my return to 
Calcutta, I prepared a report for submission to the Lieutenant-Governor, and which I 
intended to forward separately from the Annual Report. I, however, now enclose it in 
the form of an Appendix to the Annual Report. 
Expenditure .—Provision was made for the experiment of introducing Cinchonas into 
British Sikhim to the amount of Rupees 14,753 : 3: 2 from the commencement of the ex¬ 
periment in March, 1862, until the end of April, 1863. Considerable errors occurred in 
the approximate calculations of the sums required for the various charges of the year: 
some exceeded, while others fell below the calculated sums. The general result shows 
that the cultivation was carried on at a cost of Rupees 11,639 :2: 6, as appears by the an¬ 
nexed statement of the expenditure. 
The unexpected charge for procuring Cinchona plants from Madras is included under 
the head of Contingencies. As a European gardener and one Mallee were sent from 
Calcutta to Ootacamund for the plants, the sum incurred was considerable, amounting to 
Rupees 13,281: 5: 3. 
