GROWTH  OF  CINCHONA  IN  INDIA. 
239 
the  very  centre  of  Java,  natural  forests  extend  for  miles,  the  sor 
consisting  of  loosely  heaped  blocks  of  trachytic  lava.    To  this 
spot,  under  the  shade  of  wide-spreading  branches,  the  plants 
which  had  withered  in  a  more  exposed  locality,  were  transferred 
in  October,  1857.    Six  months  after,  they  begun  to  die  in  their 
new  habitation,  and  the  cause  was  soon  discovered  in  a  small 
beetle  of  the  "  bostrichus  "  species,  never  before  seen  in  the 
Java  forests,  which  deposited  its  brood  in  the  trunk.  After 
many  difficulties  and  experiments  with  soils  and  localities,  the 
Malawar  mountains  have  proved  the  best  spot.     The  slightest 
differences  of  altitude,  light,  and  temperature,  affect  the  ealisaya 
variety.    The  hardiest,  though  least  valuable,  is  the  lucumaefo- 
lia,  but  if  the  former  be  planted  early  in  good,  loose  forest  soil, 
and  moderate  shade,  particularly  in  the  region  of  from  5,000  to 
5,700  feet  above  the  sea,  it  grows  up  as  tall  and  luxuriantly  as 
any.    Each  capsule  of  each  plant  contains  an  average  of  twenty- 
five  seeds.    One  ealisaya  yielded  485  capsules  and  each  good 
plant  may  be  said  to  yield  1,300  seeds.  Of  2,000  well  developed 
seeds  sown  with  care  on  cleared  soil  under  the  shade  of  trees, 
only  one  grows  to  a  real  plant ;  for  the  slightest  touch,  even  of 
a  drop  of  water,  or  a  crawling  worm,  kills  the  root  of  the  young 
germ.    At  first  the  plants  grow  slowly,  but  after  two  years  they 
are  two  feet  high,  and  then  shoot  up  with  great  rapidity  if  raised 
from  seed.    The  plants  thus  successfully  introduced,  an  import- 
ant question  arises — Will  they  yield  as  much  quinine  as  in  their 
native  home  in  Peru  ?    To  test  this  Dr.  de  Vry  was  sent  to 
Java,  and  he  records  with  no  little  triumph  how,  on  the  21st  of 
July,  1858,  two  and  a  half  years  after  the  first  plants  wrere  in- 
troduced, he  was  enabled  to  produce  a  pure   white  crystallized 
quina  alkaloid  from  the  bark  of  one  of  those  stems  which  the 
beetle  had  destroyed.    Soon  after  he  obtained  from  a  ealisaya, 
not  five  years  old,  the  same  per  centage  of  quinine  which  the 
Bolivian  trees  yield,  or  3.12.    At  the  end  of  1861,  the  experi- 
ment in  Java,  only  six  years  old,  has  thus  succeeded  most  com- 
pletely.   Many  of  the  trees  are  now  thirty  feet  high. 
This  is  full  of  hope  for  India,  where  the  plant  is  now  being 
grown  under  exactly  the  same  conditions.  The  total  number  of 
plants  is  5,847,  and  more  than  half  are  of  that  red  bark  variety 
which  is  most  valuable,  the  dry  bark  selling  at  from  2s.  6d.  to 
