508 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
April 9,1898, 
The accompanying illustration, lent us by Messrs. 
Barr & Sons, of King Street, Covent Garden and 
Long Ditton, Surrey, shows the general features and 
conformation of this beautiful Daffodil. We have 
seen it grown in vast beds by thousands with Messrs. 
Barr, and shall never forget the sight. It should be 
grown in beds by itself to show off its graceful 
beauty properly. 
-- 
THE NURSERYMEN, MARKET 
GARDENERS’ AND GENERAL HAIL¬ 
STORM INSURANCE CORPORATION, 
LIMITED. 
The third annual general meeting of the share¬ 
holders of this Corporation, took place at Simpson's 
Hotel, ioi, Strand, W.C. Mr. H. J. Veitch occu¬ 
pied the chair, and proceedings commenced at 
3 p.m. precisely. After the minutes convening the 
meeting and those of the last annual general meeting 
had been read and duly passed, the report and 
balance sheet for 1897 were presented. 
The report commented upon the violent hail¬ 
storms of 1897, which had done damage to upwards 
of eighty nurseries, the damage to glass and crops in 
Essex alone being estimated at £50,000. All, the 
claims made upon the Corporation were assessed and 
paid within six days of the application. Attention 
was again drawn to the special advantage of insuring 
with this body, viz., that those insured can replace 
immediately their own glass broken by hail, pay¬ 
ment according to the rate per square foot at which 
the glass is insured, being made by the Corporation. 
Owing to the number of claims paid, and the 
large reserve set apart for unexpired risks (£500), 
it was not proposed to declare any dividend, 
although the directors were of opinion that the Cor¬ 
poration was at the present time in a much stronger 
position financially than ever before. The directors 
further expressed themselves fully satisfied with the 
results of last year’s business. No directors’ fees 
had been paid. The revenue account for the year 
showed that the total income from premiums to 
have been £1,360 17s., which, with interest, £45 7s. 
3d. from investments, and transfer fees, 7s. 6d., 
made a total income of £1,406 ns. gd. The total 
sum charged against the revenue was £2,228 11s. 
nd. £1,532 17s. sd. had been paid away in claims. 
The reserve for unexpired risks set aside last year 
was £300, so that the year's revenue had been 
drawn upon under this item to the tune of £1,232 17s. 
5d. In addition to paying the working expenses, 
£261 iis. 2d., £80 had been written off the forma¬ 
tion expenses, and 10 per cent, off the initial cost for 
office furniture and fixtures, whilst the large reserve 
of £500 had been set aside to meet unexpired risks. 
In moving the formal adoption of the report and 
balance sheet, Mr. H. J. Veitch gave some further 
information as to the workings of the Corporation. 
This, he said, he was led to do because it might be 
thought that the two statements that it was not pro¬ 
posed to declare any dividend, and that the directors 
were thoroughly satisfied with the results of the last 
year’s business might be considered to be conflicting 
and contradictory. The premium income was £681 
is. gd. in 1895-6; £889 ns. 5d. in 1896-7; and 
£1,360 17s. in 1897-8, so that the premiums last year 
were 53 per cent, more than in 1896-7, and more 
than ioo per cent, than in 1895-6. At the end of 
1895-6 there were 235 policies in force, covering 
10,408,161 sq. ft. of glass, and representing a money 
value of £132,215 16s. In 1896-7 there were 346 
policies, and 13,886,095 sq. ft. of glass insured at a 
value of £179,366 ns. id.; whilst they now had 550 
policies, and 20,098,104 sq. ft. of glass insured at a 
value of £263,590 19s. id. With regard to the 
claims paid since the formation of the society, two 
claims amounting to £283 17s. 4d. had been met in 
1895-6. There were no claims in 1896-7, but in 
1897-8, thirty claims had been paid representing a 
value of £r,532 17s. sd., as per revenue account. Of 
the formation expenses (£399 4s. 4d.) £239 4s. 4d. 
had been written off, leaving £160 for the next two 
years. The £500 reserve for unexpired premiums 
was £200 more than the reserve of the preceding 
year, owing to the increase in premium income. Mr. 
Veitch also read letters from various policy holders, 
whose claims had been settled, expressing their 
gratification at the prompt way in which it bad been 
done. In conclusion, Mr. Veitch paid a high tribute 
to the business acumen and industry of their 
manager and secretary, Mr. A. J. Munro. 
Mr. Tillman seconded the adoption of the report 
and balance sheet, which was carried without 
demur. 
On the motion of Mr. Hollis, seconded by Mr. 
Geo. Munro, junr., the retiring directors, Messrs. 
R. Piper, E. Rochford, W. Sams, F. Sander, N. N. 
Sherwood, and P. C. M. Veitch, were unanimously 
re-elected. 
Votes of thanks to the agents and representatives 
of the Corporation, and to the Press were proposed 
respectively by Mr. Piper, and Mr. A. J. Munro, 
and carried with unanimity. Mr. A. J. Munro was 
also cordially thanked for his unremitting labours 
for the welfare of the Corporation, whilst Mr. Back¬ 
house reminded the meeting how much they owed to 
the genial chairmanship and influence of Mr. H. J. 
Veitch. It is scarcely necessary to add that this 
found abundant echo in the hearts of Mr. Back¬ 
house's hearers. Mr. Veitch suitably responded and 
averred his willingness to help in this as in any 
other good cause. 
THE CINCHONA IN INDIA. 
(Continued from p. 493). 
A good many years ago, a private planter from 
Java, a Mr. Weinschenk, told me of a discovery he 
had made in open-air grafting by which, according 
to his own account, he got excellent results. In fact, 
he claimed by it to have almost no failures, and very 
little expense. But to this I cannot further testify 
than that I tried his plan on a small scale, but under 
unfavourable circumstances.with results that inclined 
me to view it with favour. His plan was very simple, 
but new to me. He commenced by making his 
graft sick, as he phrased it, by ringing its base, and 
letting it remain on the parent tree till its leaves 
became of an unhealthy colour, when he cut it off, 
and fixed it on the stock in the usual way. His 
whole discovery lay in making his graft sick before¬ 
hand, which, to me,appeared a very absurd proced¬ 
ure, but it really may have some reasonable founda¬ 
tion. Perhaps some one will be good enough to 
give the plan a trial with fruit and other trees at the 
proper season of the year, and chronicle the results. 
It should be done when the plants are in active 
growth. Mr. Weinschenk was a man of many 
theories, one of them being that the bark of the 
Cinchona, and not the roots or leaves, had the pre¬ 
dominating, if not the entire, influence in the chemi¬ 
cal conversion of the sap into the different alkaloids. 
Once when I was with him on a visit to theNilgiri 
Cinchona plantations he asked the late Mr. M. A. 
Lawson, the superintendent of the Madras Govern¬ 
ment plantations, but formerly Professor of Botany 
at Oxford, and consequently well acquainted with 
vegetable physiology, where he thought the control¬ 
ling chemist was located—whether in the leaves, or 
in the roots, or where? Mr. Lawson answered, off¬ 
hand, *' In the leaves, of course.” " How is it.then,'' 
said Mr. Weinschenk, "that if I cut over a succi- 
rubra plant and graft on it ledgeriana, which I let 
grow to some height, then behead and graft on a 
succirubra top, when I shall have succirubra leaves 
and succirubra roots, but the bark on the Ledger 
part of the stem, however many years afterwards, 
and however much it may have increased, will still 
be normal Ledger bark, and in the same way 
the succirubra bark at top and bottom will 
continue to be of the typical succirubra 
characters, i.e., the Ledger bark will con¬ 
tinue to contain a large proportion of quinine and 
but little of the inferior alkaloids, cinchonodine and 
cinchonine, and the succirubra vice versa. Therefore, 
said Mr.Weinschenk, I maintain that the controlling 
chemist is neither in the leaves nor in the roots, but 
in the bark itself. Of course, the obvious weak link 
in this chain of argument is the fact that the bark on 
the Ledger part of the composite tree was started 
while it bore Ledger leaves. But I think it is 
suggestive of possibilities of getting branch sports by 
the engrafting of other bark, and that the bark may 
really have a large influence in determining the 
nature of the alkaloids, or the colour of the flowers, 
or in other ways. It is just possible that some of the 
inexplicable branch sports may have orginated in the 
accidental engrafting of bark from kindred species or 
varieties. 
Collection of Bark. 
In Sikkim, the periodical crops of bark will be got 
from thinnings and prunings from the fourth or fifth 
year up to the twelfth year, when the trees will be 
at their best, and it is then more profitable to totally 
uproot and plant on fresh land, than to allow them 
to remain longer in the ground. The plan originally 
laid down was to plant out 2,400 acres, and after¬ 
wards keep up this area after uprooting 200 acres 
annually and planting as much; but factory de¬ 
mands and other circumstances often compelled 
modifications, although in the main the plan was 
adhered to till of late years, when it was found that 
bark for the factory could be got from Travancore 
and elsewhere at less than it cost to grow in Sikkim, 
where planting operations have consequently been 
restricted of late. So Sikkim is gradually becoming 
more of a manufacturing than a cultivating centre 
for the East India Cinchona industry. When the 
trees are uprooted the bark of the larger roots, 
stems, and thick branches is collected by peeling or 
beating off with wooden mallets. The smaller 
branches and roots are peeled by pulling them 
smartly through between two upright sticks stuck 
firmly and closely together in the ground, when the 
bark comes away in ribbons. 
One or two heavy and cumbrous machines have 
been invented for collecting this small bark, but none 
has answered better than the two simple sticks stuck 
in the ground, which reminds one of the old story of 
the inventor and his cabbage-cutting machine, which, 
the inventor declared, after all its good points had 
been explained and praised, cut Cabbages nearly as 
well as an old kitchen table-knife did. The bark is 
at once spread out to dry either in open or heated 
sheds, according to the weather, and when properly 
dried and protected from damp and rot, will remain 
chemically unchanged for scores, or perhaps 
hundreds, of years. Although the total uprootal 
plan is the most profitable for Sikkim, it is by no 
means so for countries geographically better situated 
for the growth of Cinchonas. On the Nilgiris, for 
instance, where several species thrive to perfection, 
the usual plan of collecting is that devised by the late 
Mr. Mclvor, the first Superintendent of the Madras 
Government Plantations, and usually known as the 
stripping process. By it the half of the stem bark 
is taken from the standing trees in vertical strips of 
about an inch and a half in width, from the collar 
up to the lower branches, or as high as may be 
thought advisable. If the trees are quite healthy 
the bark will part from the wood, at the proper 
season, of course, with the greatest ease, and leave 
the cambium layer uninjured. 
Immediately after the stripping the stem is 
covered thickly with moss or other soft substances, 
to exclude the weather. From the edges of the cuts, 
and all over the surface of the cambium layer, the 
new bark forms evenly, and with marvellous rapidity. 
In a year, or less, the renewed bark will be as thick 
as the original, and the remaining strips of original 
bark may be taken. Afterwards there may be 
annual collections of renewed bark for a consider¬ 
able number of years. It is a curious fact that the 
renewed bark is much richer than the original in 
quinine, and consequently more [valuable—often to 
the extent of 25 to 50 per cent. The plan requires 
generous treatment of the trees in the way of 
manure and cultivation, as only trees in vigorous 
growth will stand it; but it well repays the extra 
expenditure. For this discovery, and many other 
things, the Cinchona industry is heavily indebted to 
Mr. Mclvor, perhaps more so than to any other 
man. Several modifications of his stripping plan 
have been tried, but none has succeeded so well. 
Perhaps the best of them is the shaving plan of the 
Dutch in Java. By it the outer half of the bark, all 
round the stem, is removed with spoke-shaves, and 
the stem covered up in Mclvor's way. As it is well 
known that the great proportion of the alkaloids is 
located in the outer half of the bark, and very little 
in the inner, it is claimed for this [plan that the 
whole of the useful factory bark can be removed by 
it, and the useless left behind to carry on the life- 
work of the tree. 
It was also supposed to be less injurious to the 
trees, but, according to my experience, it is quite 
the other way. Mclvor's plan, which was in opera¬ 
tion many years before it, no doubt suggested it to 
the Dutch. Coppicing was tried in Sikkim, but was 
a commercial failure, as by it we lost the bark 
from the original roots, which usually amounted to 
quite one third of the whole out-turn. As the cop¬ 
pice shoots grew they threw out new roots for them- 
