280 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ September 29, 1887. 
compare our system with that of the States, we find that there one of 
the leading industries in connection with horticulture is that of the 
winter utilisation of fruit. Fruit preserves—different from our jams— 
canned fruits, and fruit juices are the order of the day. Farmers grow 
special crops for the canneries, and the canneries cater in a wholesale 
manner for the public. In out-of-the-way districts the grower himself 
has his household fruit mill, fruit evaporator, or drier for the same pur¬ 
pose. Summer or winter every farm house has an abundance of fruit, 
fresh, preserved, or dried. Not only do they evaporate their Apple chips 
and rings, but also Plums, Peaches, Nectarines, Apricots, Cherries, 
Currants, Easpberries, Grapes, and Figs, so that they have all the year 
pure fruit in abundance. The system of drying and evaporating is 
simple, and the apparatus by no means dear. This being so, it is strange 
that it has not become popular here with the home-grower. 
INDIAN EXPERIENCES. 
(Continued from page 257.') 
The block of forest called Deva Shola, or the Gods’ Wood— 
from Deva, God, and Shola, a wood—was, before the advent of the Chin- 
chona planter on the Nilgiris, by far the largest and finest piece of forest 
on the plateau. Large streams of water flowed through it, and an old 
road ran through its centre fringed with masses of Ferns, such as 
Adiantum oethiopicum, A. hispidulum, Davallia tenuifolia, Pteris cretica, 
Lastrea aristata, Cyrtomium caryotideum, and many others, whilst the 
ravines were filled with handsome specimens of a Tree Fern, Alsophila 
latebrosa. The Shola being situated so near the large station of Oota- 
camund, was a great resort of shooting and picnic parties. The wood 
consisted originally of from 800 to 900 acres of low but very thick 
forest, with a very dense undergrowth of a species of Strobalanthus 
with long interlacing stems, forming in many parts an impenetrable 
thicket, save for the lanes formed in it by the passage of deer and other 
wild animals. This famous wood was at one time the home of the 
tiger, bear, lambhur or large deer, leopard, wild boar, and other 
animals, which yielded magnificent sport to the residents and visitors 
to the Nilgiris. The wood was in fact a place of great note and quite a 
feature of the hills, and was also looked upon by the surrounding native 
population as a peculiarly sacred spot, the place of abode of their Gods, 
and where they retired to worship. It was therefore with horror and 
dismay that they received the news that 500 acres of the sacred Shola 
had by Government been given over to the ruthless hand of the Chin- 
chona planter. Notwithstanding all this, however, when the time came 
for felling the forest the natives from the neighbouring villages of all 
castes, with a true oriental love for gain in the shape of wages, came 
crowding to the work of destroying the Shola, which had been held to 
be so sacred by their forefathers for so many generations. There can 
be no doubt that the destruction of this famous wood was a gross 
blunder. In the first place the Government were to blame in allowing 
it to pass out of their hands to the extent they did ; and secondly, the 
parties to whom the land was conceded were even more to blame in 
ruthlessly sweeping the land of its covering of forest before having a 
single Chinchona plant ready to be put out, and neglecting to leave the 
all necessary belts of protecting forest as barriers against the annual 
gales of the south-west monsoon. 
In due course I succeeded in raising some 600,000 sturdy young 
Chinchona plants, all of the succirubra species, in burning, clearing, and 
pitting sufficient land to receive these plants, and in building a sub¬ 
stantial brick house on a grass ridge adjoining the plantation. All 
went well till what is called in India the “ bursting” of the south-west 
monsoon, which proved to be the herald of a series of disasters. In the 
first place, on the second or third night of the monsoon the corrugated 
iron roof of the newly finished house was blown clean off and carried 
right away into a ravine below, causing me to seek shelter in an out¬ 
house. The gale continued for a fortnight with little or no rain, so 
that no planting operations could be undertaken. About a couple of 
acres had been planted the year previous to this with plants of the 
succirubra species of Chinchona purchased from Government. These 
had grown up into nice plants of over a foot in height, but in this gale 
were nearly all snapped over close to the ground. This was in the month 
of July, but as no rain fell during that nor the succeeding two months, 
I had to wait patiently till the month of October, or the setting in of 
the north-east monsoon, before beginning planting operations? This 
monsoon set in in due course and proved an excellent one for planting, 
so that I had no difficulty in putting out the 600,000 plants before the 
rains ceased. 
After the work had been completed I began to consider whether a 
plantation of Chinchona could ever be raised over the whole area of 
the 500 acres that had been cleared of forest, and I came to the con¬ 
clusion that it could not. The soil was excellent over the whole surface, 
and all other conditions were most favourable to the forming of a 
magnificent plantation. But the question of the wind had to be con¬ 
sidered, and it was evident that save in the sheltered nooks it would be 
quite impossible to form a plantation of even stunted growth. The 
difference of elevation between the foot of the plantation and the 
top ridges was as much as 700 feet, and the wind striking these ridges 
where no sheltering belts had been left came down upon the plantation, 
sweeping everything before it. Had I been wise I would have relin¬ 
quished charge of the plantation after the first planting had been 
completed, but I foolishly waited to see the effect of another monsoon 
on the plants I had just put out, hoping against hope that it might not 
prove so disastrous as the one I had just passed through. The planting 
proved a very successful one, and before the following July the plants 
had attained an average height of 15 inches. The monsoon burst as 
usual about the end of June, the wind increasing in strength till about 
the 15th July, when it culminated in a terrific gale of three days, when 
it suddenly calmed and the sun came out as bright as ever. I had made 
it a point not to visit the estate during the whole time of the storm, but 
when it ceased I had a quiet walk round the plantation to view the 
damage which I knew quite well had been done. I had put the esti¬ 
mate of damage in my own mind at a pretty high figure, but the result 
of my walk proved I had not put it nearly high enough, as at least 
400,000 out of the 600,000 plants put out had been snapped off by the 
ground and were blown into the ravines below and on the roads, where 
they lay in wreaths withering in the sun. The stem of the succirubra 
species of Chinchona is exceedingly brittle when in a young state, so 
that the plants were not wrung about and thus destroyed, but snapped 
clean off, and the land stripped and the year’s work and expenditure 
nearly totally lost. I at once communicated with the proprietors of the 
property, giving it as my opinion that a plantation of Chinchona could 
not be produced over the whole area of the land till such time as some 
sort of shelter could be raised for the due protection of the plants, and 
offering my resignation. In this opinion they did not concur, and in¬ 
duced me to remain at my post, which I was sorry for ever after¬ 
wards. 
Young plants were raised in abundance for three years in succession 
and the land regularly replanted, the plants as regularly meeting the 
same fate as those of the first planting. Attempts were made to grow 
belts of Eucalyptus globulus and Acacia melanoxylon to break the wind, 
but only with very partial success, the severe monsoon storms retarding 
their growth generally, so that the cultivation of Chinchona was 
eventually abandoned on the estate except in the sheltered nooks, which 
formed but a very small area in proportion to the whole land, so that 
here was a property all but totally ruined by too grasping a policy in 
the first instance, and by a total want of knowledge or ignoring of the 
peculiarities of the climate of the district, and as a monument of this 
false economy was left a few hundreds of acres of thorny scrub in place 
of the beautiful and picturesque Shola of former days. The exercise of 
a little forethought would have prevented all this. Had the forest 
clothing the ridges been simply left as a protection the lower portions of 
the land could have been cultivated in perfect shelter, and with every 
chance of success, but no cultivated plant, be it Tea, Coffee, or Chin¬ 
chona, will ever thrive if planted in a position fully exposed to the 
heavy south-west monsoon blasts, which are stronger as the elevation is 
greater. In large blocks of forest extending for miles, as in the Wynaad, 
it is very difficult to say where the wind will strike after say 100 acres is 
felled ; and frequently mistakes of a very serious nature are made, even 
when the greatest precaution is taken beforehand; but as regards smaller 
isolated patches, such as are found on the Nilgiris, the case is different, 
and with ordinary precaution no mistakes of this nature need occur. 
At the time I write of the succirubra species of Chinchona was alone 
planted on land under 6500 feet; above that elevation the officinalis 
species with its hybrids were planted. Since those days the latter has 
so superseded the former in value of bark that estates of succirubra are 
at the present moment considered of little or no value, from the much 
smaller quantity of alkaloids found in the bark and the greater difficulty 
in their extraction. No one dreams of planting succirubra in these 
days, and existing estates of this species I believe are in some cases being 
replanted with Tea. 
While living at Deva Shola I had the opportunity of witnessing the 
flowering of a low shrub, a species of Strobilanthus, but not the same as 
grew amongst the trees of the forest. It is a low evergreen shrub which 
covers the hills for miles, and is said to flower only once in seven years. 
It has a very beautiful blue flower, and when in full bloom the appear¬ 
ance of the hills is beyond description. After flowering and ripening its 
seed the plant dies, but springs again very readily from seed, so that 
after the death of the old plants the hills are soon clothed again. It 
has been said that it is from this flower that the Nilgiris get the name of 
the Blue Mountains, but this, of course, is only fanciful. Not far from 
Deva Shola, and at a slightly lower elevation, the wild Orange tree is to 
be found growing on the grass hills on the edges of the Sholas. It is a 
very beautiful object when covered with ripe fruit and flowers. I was 
much struck with its great beauty when I accidentally came upon it for 
the first time. There were many trees in small groups and dotted singly 
our the grass hills. The trees were rich both in green and ripe fruit of 
a large size, and the flowers were abundant. The grass was strewn with 
ripe fruit, and altogether the sight in the wild was a very beautiful and 
interesting one. On tasting the fruit I found them bitter beyond ex¬ 
pression. Another spot in this locality deserves mention—viz., Mailoor, 
which is a village about three miles from Deva Shola, and possessing a 
very mild and delightful climate. A few yards from the village may 
be seen sculptured slabs of stone, which are involved in mystery, no 
one knowing who put them there, or why, enhancing the interest 
attached to them. Near by is a temple belonging to one of the hill 
tribes surrounded by splendid specimens of Elasocarpus trees, their wide- 
spreading branches affording a deep shade, which gives solemnity to the 
scene. The temple itself stands in the middle of a circle marked out 
with a rugged stone wall 3 or 4 feet in height. The temple is dedicated, 
it is supposed, to the Fire God of this particular tribe, as within the 
circle there is a small hollow in the ground, which is the scene of one of 
their religious ceremonies—namely, that of walking through fire. The 
hollow is filled with burning ashes, through which each devotee walks 
slowly and majestically; this rite is performed once a year. This 
