The name of grey bark refers to the striking effect of the overspreading thallus of various Graphideæ, forming groups, and indicating that the tree has grown in an open situation, exposed to rain and sunshine. A large supply of all the best kinds of grey bark is now growing in India.[73]
V.—THE CALISAYA REGION IN BOLIVIA AND SOUTHERN PERU.
The chinchona region of Bolivia and Southern Peru, although one of the most important, was the last to contribute supplies of bark to the European markets. The trees first became known through the investigations of the German botanist Thaddæus Haenke, and a Spanish naval officer named Rubin de Celis, who drew the attention of the inhabitants to the valuable forests on the eastern slopes of the Bolivian Andes in 1776, though the unfortunate French naturalist Joseph de Jussieu had previously explored some portions of those forests.[74] But it was not until 1820, when quinine was first discovered as the febrifugal principle of bark, that the Chinchona Calisaya[75] was recognised as containing more of that alkaloid than any other species.
After 1820 the demand for calisaya bark increased enormously; great numbers of cascarilleros, or bark-collectors, entered the forests, and in a short time scarcely a tree remained in the vicinity of the inhabited places; and the bark was exported in such quantities that the price fell very much.[76] It was not, however, until 1830 that the Bolivian Government interfered in the bark trade. It was then considered necessary by General Santa Cruz's administration to check the drain of this precious source of wealth by limiting the quantity of bark to be cut or exported; and in November, 1834, the Bolivian Congress decreed a law on the subject, which, however, never took effect. Finally, the cutting was prohibited for five years, but before the expiration of that period the decree was abrogated, and an export duty of twelve dollars to twenty dollars the quintal, or cwt., was imposed.
In 1844 the Bolivian Congress authorized the President, General Ballivian, to negotiate for the establishment of a national bank of bark, with the requisite capital, to export all the quinquina bark produced in the country. This Bolivian legislation on the chinchona bark, which is considered, with justice, the most important product of their country, is very curious, and sufficiently demonstrates the futility of attempting a system of protection and monopoly. Instead of taking measures to prevent the reckless destruction of the trees, to establish extensive nurseries for young plants, and thus ensure a constant and sufficient supply of bark, these Bolivians have meddled with the trade, attempted to regulate European prices by the most barbarous legislation, and allowed the forests to be denuded of chinchona-trees. In 1845 the bark monopoly was given to Messrs. Jorge Tesanos Pinto and Co., for five years, for the sum of 119,000 dollars, during which time not more than 4000 quintals of bark were to be exported annually. This company gave such iniquitously low prices to the cascarilleros for their bark, that a clamour was raised against it, and the President, General Belzu, put an end to its existence in March 1849.
Free trade, with a duty of twenty dollars the quintal, was then established during one year; but in 1850 exclusive privileges were again granted to Messrs. Aramayo Brothers and Co., who were to pay the Government 142,000 dollars a year for the right of exporting 7000 quintals of bark annually, to be purchased of the cascarilleros, the tabla or trunk bark at sixty dollars the quintal, and the canuto or quill bark at thirty to thirty-six dollars the quintal. The Pinto company had only paid eighteen to twenty-two dollars the quintal for tabla, and eight to ten dollars for canuto bark. The favourable conditions thus offered to cascarilleros induced so great a number of persons to undertake the business, that at the end of the first year more than 20,000 quintals of bark arrived at La Paz—that is to say, more than twice as much as the company had agreed for, and more than the Pinto company had exported in five years. The Government then issued a decree to prevent the smuggling of bark, and another that no bark should be cut except for the company: but these measures caused much discontent, and in 1851 the Congress voted that the Executive had exceeded its powers in making these arrangements with the Aramayo company, and declared them to be null and void. The Aramayo company purchased 14,000 quintals of the bark, and agreed to take the same quantity during the two following years, paying only a third of the price in ready money; but a new company, formed under the name of Pedro Blaye and Co., engaged to purchase all the bark that was for sale, both at La Paz and Cochabamba, for ready money. It was evident that one or the other of these companies must break, and finally that of Blaye fell. The Government then determined to export the bark which remained in store on its own account, paying the same price as had been agreed on by the company.
These two companies lasted for two years, during which time the Bolivian forests yielded 3,000,000 lbs. of bark. Such was the result of the high prices which followed the fall of the Pinto monopoly; but it was the rich contractors, and not the poor bark-collectors, who derived benefit from the change.[77]
In 1851 Government prohibited the cutting of bark entirely, from the 1st of January, 1852, to the 1st of January, 1854.[78] In 1858 a decree was issued to regulate the transition of the system of monopoly to that of free-trade in bark, which caused an improvement in the prices in European markets; and in November, 1859, Dr. Linares, then President of Bolivia, declared the right to cut bark in the forests to be free, and reduced the duty 25 per cent. on the current prices, to be fixed at the beginning of each year.[79] This is the law which now regulates the bark trade in Bolivia, and, after a course of short-sighted meddling legislation, extending over twenty years, in 1850 it still brought 142,000 dollars annually into the public treasury, being a fifteenth part of the whole revenue of the Republic.