As quinine-yielding bark is a more valuable product than coffee, there is every reason to believe that, as soon as the Government plantations are proved to be successful, many planters will undertake the cultivation; and I understand from Mr. McIvor that several persons have already expressed a desire to give the chinchonæ a trial, and that he expects to be able to distribute plants by June 1862.[527] Thus another important product will be added to the resources of India, while the Government will have an abundant and cheap annual supply of the most indispensable of all medicines to Europeans in tropical climates, which is now only obtained at immense expense, and in quantities quite insufficient to meet the demand.
In a commercial point of view the introduction of chinchona-plants into India is likely to prove very beneficial, by adding another valuable article of export to the numerous products of that favoured land; but an equal if not a greater result will be derived from this important measure, in the naturalisation of these healing plants in a country the inhabitants of which suffer so severely and constantly from intermittent and other fevers. From motives of humanity, as well as from personal interest, every coffee-planter, as I have before said, ought to cultivate a few rows of chinchona-plants in the upper part of his clearing. Even if it is not intended to rear them on account of their commercial value, yet such a measure recommends itself as a duty, in order to have a supply of this inestimable febrifuge constantly at hand for the use of those who are employed on the plantations.
Many of the natives are already fully aware of the febrifugal virtues of Peruvian bark, and it is to be hoped that, in all the hill-districts where there is a suitable elevation and climate, they will grow chinchona-trees in their gardens, just as is now generally done with coffee in all the villages in Coorg. For the use of the natives there will be no necessity to go to the expense and trouble of extracting the alkaloids, as the green fresh bark is itself very efficacious. After the natives have once used this unfailing remedy, and experienced the power it has over the fevers from which they suffer, they will, like Dr. Poeppig in the wilds of Peru, approach the beautiful healing trees with warm feelings of gratitude,[528] their fame will spread far and wide, and the cultivation of chinchonæ will, I trust, be extended to its utmost limit throughout the peninsula of India.
So far as my observations extended, the impression which I had previously received, that the natives can with difficulty be induced to undertake the cultivation of any new plants to which they have not been accustomed, was not confirmed. Not to mention the potato, maize, tobacco, and capsicums, which originally came from America, and are now generally cultivated in India, it is a fact that in Wynaad upwards of 2000 acres are taken up for coffee cultivation by the natives; and in Coorg, where coffee was only introduced about six years ago, I scarcely saw a single hut to which a small coffee-garden was not attached. The extent to which the cassava (Jatophra Manihot), only lately introduced, is now cultivated in Travancore, is quite remarkable; and there is every reason to suppose that the natives will be equally ready to cultivate a plant possessing such extraordinary febrifugal powers as the chinchona, the value of which they will soon appreciate.
Thus will the successful cultivation of the quinine-yielding chinchona-plants confer a great and lasting benefit upon the people of India, as well as upon the commerce of the whole world; and the concluding words of Dr. Weddell's Introduction[529] may, therefore, with strict propriety, be applied to Mr. McIvor and his assistants: "Reste la ressource de la culture, et il faut l'employer. S'il est un arbre digne d'être acclimaté, c'est certes le Quinquina; et la postérité bénirait ceux qui auraient mis à exécution une semblable idée."
While speaking of the incalculable value of quinine-yielding chinchona-plants, it must be understood that I include those of the "grey-bark" species, which yield chinchonine; and it is the more important to dwell upon this, because a sentence in the Introduction to Mr. Howard's valuable work is perhaps calculated to give a different impression.[530] It is true that chinchonine will not command so remunerative a price in the London market; yet it produces effects on the system precisely analogous to quinine. To stop intermittent fever, doses of chinchonine require to be one-third larger than doses of quinine; but it is absolutely certain that the former is as good a febrifuge as the latter, and it costs infinitely less. Planters will of course, in the first instance, undertake the cultivation of those species which yield quinine, such as C. succirubra, C. Condaminea, C. lancifolia, and C. Calisaya; but the grey-bark species will yield barks which will afford valuable supplies to the Government hospitals; and their naturalisation all over the plateau of the Neilgherries and other hill districts will be a great boon to the natives. Hereafter the latter species will well repay the outlay and labour of cultivation. Even now there is a great demand for chinchonine; the chinchonidine of C. Condaminea is considered by Mr. Howard to be scarcely if at all inferior to quinine, and Dr. J. Macpherson thinks so highly of the value of chinchonine that he considers it to be of little importance whether the species introduced into India are rich in quinine or chinchonine. This gentleman speaks from experience acquired by long practice in the East Indies.[531]
The following is a table of the largest amount of alkaloids extracted from, and the price in the London markets of the barks of species of chinchonæ now introduced into India:—
Under cultivation the barks may be expected to yield a much larger per-centage of alkaloids than they ever do in their wild state.