THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN'S COR PAN LON, February 24,1857. 355 
sunless climate similar to what are gained in the hot 
plains of its native country. Some artificial assistance 
must therefore bo given. Though not an annual plant, 
properly speaking, yet we often treat it as such, and only 
sow the seed in early spring under the favourable cir¬ 
cumstances of a hotbed, potting off the seedlings when 
ready, and so forth. Now, this is all very well, but unless 
the plant be sown very early, and forwarded by all the 
most favourable means at the command of the cultivator, 
the fruit rarely ripens, or rather, very little of it does 
so, and a number of small green fruit-pods is all that 
rewards the cultivator. This is when the plant is grown 
in some ordinary frame or rich border, with every 
facility for the plants thriving and growing, and but 
little chance of its fruiting or ripening its fruit. 
Now, the most rational plan to insure a crop of useful 
fruit in an open border, or when sheltered by an ordinary 
frame, is to sow the seeds in July or August of the pre¬ 
ceding year, and keep them through the winter in small 
pots, ready for growing them on in spring. Plant them 
out about the middle of May in a frame made ready for 
them, and cover them with glass to promote their fruit¬ 
ing well; but, as other conditions are to be borne in 
mind as well, a few words on the preparation of tem¬ 
porary glass shelters for such plants may not he out of 
place here. I therefore append them. 
When a frame and glass lights are used to protect 
Cauliflowers during the winter, or to force Potatoes or 
Radishes in early spring, the soil which is used is 
generally good and rich, for these articles can scarcely 
be too luxuriant, it being the vegetable and not the fruit 
or seed part which is the eatable portion of the plant; 
consequently, a rich, nutritious soil is used to meet 
the wants of a crowded state of things inside; hut 
when Capsicums are planted the case is different—a 
partial check is put on the plant, and its fruiting well 
and maturing its fruit are the ends to be more desired. 
For that purpose a shallow soil with an uninviting bot¬ 
tom is certainly the best to check undue vigour in growth, 
and the plants, finding their growing propensity stopped, 
become the more fruitful in consequence, and that so 
early in the season as to allow the fruit time to ripen, 
which is not the case when a luxuriant growth or en¬ 
largement of the vegetable portion of the plant is going 
on at the same time. I would, therefore, advise the 
amateur who wishes to grow a few handsful of this fruit 
to mix with his hot pickles or for other purposes, and 
has a spare two or three-light box for the purpose of 
growing them in, to select some sunny situation, and if 
the natural soil be a deep, retentive loam, to excavate 
about six or eight inches, and then spread some slaked 
lime over the ground tolerably thick, so that when it 
becomes consolidated it may be an impenetrable barrier 
to the roots passing through. Over the top of this I 
would have a light, open compost, in which a good share 
of stones might form a part. This compost, let it be 
observed, need not necessarily be poor, but by being 
shallow the plants speedily occupy it all, and then 
mature their growth and their fruit together. This is 
one of the principles of Nature, which is applicable in 
other instances as well as in this, for we see trees grow¬ 
ing in a dry, rocky soil ripen their wood and shed their 
leaves before the like kinds do so on a damper soil; but 
few soils are impervious to the roots of trees, unless the 
substratum be of so pernicious a nature as to resist 
them. In the case alluded to the plants are compelled 
to adapt themselves to the place and substance allotted 
them, and are partly under the same control as if in 
pots, only the space being larger, and not bounded side¬ 
ways, the evils of pot culture are avoided; but if the 
plants seem to require more food liquid manure can be 
given them, and the result will doubtless be satis¬ 
factory. 
Although the above is given with a view to encourage 
the growth of plants sown in the summer of the season 
before, yet there is no reason why annual plants might 
not do in the same way, provided they be sown early 
enough, and encouraged in their early growth ; but the 
most important of all auxiliary forces is a bright, hoi 
summer. This not only makes the plants more fruitful 
and ripens them, but also increases the hot, peppery 
property for which the fruit is remarkable. I might also 
add that in like manner a confined or contracted growth 
is also productive of hotter (which, I suppose, in this 
case means better) flavoured fruit than when grown 
under circumstances more favourable to the enlargement 
of the vegetable. J. Robson. 
Peruvian Bark.— It is not an easy matter to interest the 
public in an essay on drugs, but quinine is unfortunately a 
household word in every Indian family. The price of grain 
is a question which seldom gives anxiety to the poorest 
among us, but though absolute poverty may be almost un¬ 
known, we are accustomed to look on fever as one of the 
common incidents of daily life, and the very possibility of a 
quinine famine becomes suggestive of great public calamity. 
It has been known for many years that the capacity of the 
Peruvian forests for supplying the world with Cinchona bark 
was not unlimited. On the other hand, the demand for 
quinine has increased, not only steadily, but progressively,in 
England and elsewhere, as well as in India. The reputation 
of the febrifuge grows. It is administered in scruple doses 
where it was formerly administered by grains. It is used 
largely, as on the later Niger expedition, as a prophylactic, 
where it was formerly used but sparingly as a remedy for 
the actual fever. Every new gold mine discovered in 
California or Australia, every new settlement established in 
Oregon or in New Zealand, every new lodgment effected by 
civilisation on the frontiers of barbarism, acts directly on 
the quinine market. And yet the supply from Peru, at the 
best stationary, is most probably rapidly diminishing. The 
naturalisation in India, therefore, of the quinine-yielding 
Cinchona tree is a question of philanthropy as well as of 
agricultural economy. The Dutch have lately imported the 
plant into Java witli apparent success. It has even been 
introduced into India; but the half-dozen plants which Mr. 
Fortune brought out in 1854 perished, partly, perhaps, from 
ignorance, partly because the experiment was tried on too 
small a scale. It has become necessary to renew the 
experiment, and to surround it with the conditions likely to 
insure its success. In South America the quiniferous 
Cinchona is limited to the Bolivian, Peruvian, and Columbian 
Andes, from latitudes 20° S. to 10° N., and to altitudes 
ordinarily varying from 1,500 to 10,000, but sometimes 
mounting to 14,000, and even under the equator, to 18,000 
feet. The best bark is found in dry, rocky situations, at 
great heights, and in the coldest regions. In low and hot 
valleys the plant grows—it even grows luxuriantly—but the 
medicinal value of its bark vanishes. It is thought that 
the conditions thus indicated may be supplied by the bills 
of certain parts of India, such as the mountains behind 
Chittagong, the hilly tracts around Darjeeling, the upper 
spurs of the Neilgherries, and the higher elevations of the 
Western Ghauts. In order that the experiment may be 
fairly tried, the Supreme Government has resolved to move 
the Court of Directors to send an experienced botanist to 
South America, empowered to select a cargo of plants for 
transport to India. Propagation by seed has been tried 
with such ill success that it is considered out of the question. 
All meagre attempts to transmit cuttings in small quantities 
have been found to be the worst economy. It remains, then, 
to follow the example of the Dutch, who, by sending from 
Batavia for a shipload of plants, have already attained results 
which seem to promise final success. The Court of 
Directors can hardly refuse to listen to the earnest repre¬ 
sentations which have been made by the Indian Govern¬ 
ment. The expense of the enterprise will doubtless be 
great, hut at present the cost of quinine in the Indian 
hospitals is calculated by lacs of rupees, although it is a 
well-known fact that quinine is seldom administered in 
hospitals whore arsenic can he made, however ineffectively, 
