252 
KEW GARDENS. 
ON KEW GARDENS AND SOME OF THE BOTANICAL 
STATISTICS OF THE BRITISH POSSESSIONS. 
BY J. G. BAKER, F.R.S., F.L.S. 
(Continued from page 235.) 
In India the product of the bark is used mainly in the 
form of a mixed febrifuge in which the different alkaloids are 
not separated from one another. This is prepared from the 
finely-powdered bark by mixing it with milk of lime and 
spirits of wine. At the close of 1882 there were in the 
Bengal plantations a stock of nearly five millions of trees, of 
which three-quarters were C. succirubrct, yielding an annual 
crop of 400,000 lbs. of dry bark. The amount of capital 
altogether expended in Bengal in the plantations and 
manufactory was £100,000, and on this the receipts for 
1878-9 yielded 4^ per cent, on the capital outlay, exclusive 
of 5,500 lbs. of the alkaloid taken for the Government 
hospitals, which replaced an equal amount of quinine, which, 
if purchased, would have cost the Government £44.000. 
Dr. King estimates that by the end of 1878-9 the total 
amount saved to Government was £80,000, and Mr. Wood, 
the Government quinologist, estimates that the cost of the 
mixed febrifuge will ultimately be brought down to a 
shilling per ounce. The price of the sulphate of quinine in 
England has been reduced during the last few years from 
18s. to 5s. per ounce. As before explained, only four out of 
the thirty-six species have been extensively planted in India, 
and of the economic value of many of the others very little is 
known clearly. 
India-rubber.— What is sold under the name of india- 
rubber is the stiffened milky juice of at least six different 
genera of trees, belonging to three widely different natural 
orders, Landolphia and Willughbeia in Ayocynacece , Castilloa 
and Ficus in Artocarpece, and Hevea and Manihot in Euphor- 
biacece. Part of it comes from South America (shipped 
principally from Para and Carthagena), part of it from Sierra 
Leone, Mozambique and Madagascar, and the remainder 
from tropical Asia. Besides these two genera of Apocynaceae, 
there are at least six others which yield a similar milky 
juice, which is not at present utilised to any considerable 
extent. In the United States in 1888 there were 120 india- 
rubber factories, employing 15,000 hands. The total 
importation of raw material into the States in that year was 
