418 
The  Cinchona  Plantations  in  Java. 
J  Am.  Jour.  Pharm* 
\    Sept.  1, 1873. 
never  decomposed  in  these  conditions.  The  contrary  is  the  case  with 
the  hypophosphites,  which,  being  latterly  employed  in  medicine,  may 
be  the  cause  of  errors. — Chem.  News  (LondX  July  18,  1873. 
THE  CINCHONA  PLANTATIONS  IN  JAYA. 
By  John  Eliot  Howard,  F.  L.  S. 
I  did  not  receive  till  last  Friday  a  pamphlet  called  'A  Contribu- 
tion towards  the  Knowledge  of  the  Cinchona  Culture  in  Java.  By 
K.  W.  von  Gorkom.  Translated  from  Dutch  into  German  by  0. 
Hasskarl."  This  paper,  which  may  be  considered  official,  helps 
greatly  towards  the  understanding  of  the  very  important  question, 
"  From  whence  arises  the  superiority  of  the  Dutch  Calisaya  tree,  pro- 
ceeding from  Ledger's  seed,  over  those  raised  from  the  same  seed  in 
British  India  ?"  I  do  not  say  that  we  have  quite  a  definite  answer, 
but  that  we  are  on  the  way  to  it,  and  shall  soon,  as  I  hope,  get  to  the 
bottom  of  the  business.  I  feel  some  responsibility  to  accomplish  this, 
as  in  reply  to  an  official  letter  of  inquiry  from  her  Majesty's  Secre- 
tary of  State  for  India,  in  January,  1872,*  I  ventured  to  recommend 
the  cultivation  of  these  superior  kinds  of  Calisaya,  and  specially  of 
No.  V  Calisaya  (Broughton). 
There  is  a  contrast  now  pointed  out  between  the  plants  from  Brit- 
ish India  and  those  which  have  been  raised  in  Java.  "  In  1866 — 67 
there  were  raised  3000  plants  of  C.  Calisaya,  from  seed  obtained 
from  British  India.  These  have  quite  an  irregular  type,  so  that  their 
identity  with  the  remaining  Calisaya  plants  may  be  called  in  question. 
Almost  all  the  Calisaya  plants  raised  since  1868,  and  thus  planted 
out  in  the  open,  since  1869 — 70  proceed  from  the  trees  obtained  from 
Bolivian  seed.  They  show  themselves  by  an  unchangeable  type  and 
a  high  percentage  of  quinine,  so  that  from  this  source  in  a  few  years 
distinguished  bark  for  the  manufactories  may  be  expected." 
The  cultivators  in  Java,  having  obtained  the  real  sort,  have 
been  careful  to  propagate  it  by  cuttings,  not  trusting  to  the  vari- 
able results  of  the  seed.  And  what  is  this  typical  sort  ?  Of  this 
we  shall  doubtless  be  informed  from  Java.  At  present  I  can  only 
say  that  the  appearance  of  the  small  portion  of  the  bark  which  I  have 
seen  is  that  of  the  Zamba  (as  I  have  said),  and  its  contents  in  alka- 
loid, 7*44  per  cent,  of  sulphate  of  quinine,  against  7*40,  my  best 
*See  Pharm.  Journ.,  March  9,  1872. 
