Besides the plants brought by M. Hasskarl, a plant of C. Calisaya, raised in Paris from seeds sent home by Dr. Weddell, had arrived in Java; as well as plants raised from seeds previously sent from Peru, and seeds of C. lancifolia sent by Dr. Karsten from New Granada, through the Governor of Curaçoa; and thus the experimental chinchona cultivation in Java was commenced.
Although through various circumstances the mission to South America was not very successful, yet M. Hasskarl deserves the greatest credit for the zeal and determination displayed by him in his journeys, during which he was surrounded by no ordinary amount of difficulties and dangers. He certainly proved himself to be a most indefatigable and courageous traveller.
M. Hasskarl, and his associate M. Teysmann, selected the site for the first chinchona plantation, at a place called Tjibodas, thirty miles south of Batavia, on the northern slope of the volcanic range which traverses Java from east to west, and 4400 feet above the sea. Ground was also prepared at Tjipannas, half a mile above Tjibodas, and 4700 feet above the sea. These sites were covered with rasamala-trees of immense size (Liquidambar Altingia,[104] Blume), which had to be felled. The superintendents, deceived by the sight of such large trees, imagined that the soil was deep and good, but in reality it was not more than six inches deep, and underneath there was a formation completely impenetrable to roots, called tjadas, composed of sand and small stones of trachytic origin, strongly cemented together by crater slime, the whole being as hard as rock. Not one of the huge rasamala-trees in reality pierced this tjadas with their roots, but ran along its surface horizontally for hundreds of feet. In these localities the chinchona-plants continued to languish during the year 1855, and in the end of that year the experiment presented a most hopeless appearance.
The causes of this failure are sufficiently evident. After the felling of the rasamala-trees, the young chinchona-plants were exposed to the full force of a burning sun, without any shade whatever, in an extraordinarily thin soil upon a rocky bank impenetrable to roots. The dead and rotted roots of the rasamala-trees were allowed to remain, developing fungi which attacked the chinchona-roots; and the sites themselves were in much too low and warm a climate. In consequence of the combined effects of these adverse influences, there were only 300 chinchona-plants in Java, in a sickly unpromising condition, after the lapse of the first eighteen months.
In December, 1855, Dr. Franz Junghuhn came to Java with 139 chinchona-plants, raised from seeds in Holland. They were delivered over to M. Hasskarl, and in six months seventy-six of them were dead. In June, 1856, M. Pahud, who had been Minister of the Colonies, and was then Governor-General of Netherlands India, relieved M. Hasskarl of his duties, and gave the entire charge of the chinchona experiment to Dr. Junghuhn, an experienced scientific botanist. Dr. J. E. de Vry, a chemist of some eminence, was also sent to Java, charged with the special duty of applying chemical tests to the barks of the chinchona-plants, to ascertain their intrinsic value.
When Dr. Junghuhn took charge the prospects of the experiment were very far from promising, and he has displayed an amount of intelligent perseverance, combined with much practical knowledge, which is deserving of all praise. He found the 139 chinchona-plants which he himself brought out reduced to sixty-three; the seeds of C. lancifolia represented by three sickly plants; the collection of plants of C. Calisaya brought by M. Hasskarl from Peru, also reduced to three; two plants of C. Calisaya raised from seeds sent home by Dr. Weddell; and the remainder, consisting of the worthless species collected by M. Hasskarl in Uchubamba, making a total of only 300 plants.
In 1856 a new system was introduced, money was lavishly expended, an efficient establishment was formed, and a great effort was commenced to secure the successful cultivation of the chinchona-plants. The superintendent receives 1350l. a year, the chemist 1100l. a year, and under them there are eight Dutch overseers; the total amount paid in salaries being 3256l. a year.[105] It was ordered that, until the cultivation is considered as quite successful, it should remain under the management of scientific men, but that finally it should be handed over to the ordinary direction of the chiefs of the provincial government, under the Director of Cultures; and a memorandum of instructions, consisting of eighteen articles, was drawn up for the guidance of Dr. Junghuhn and his subordinates.
Finding the chinchona-plants in so deplorable a condition, one of Dr. Junghuhn's first measures was to transplant them from Tjibodas to a more suitable site on the Malawar mountains, a very delicate and hazardous operation, which was, however, successfully performed: in 1857 plants both of C. Calisaya and of the worthless species blossomed, and in 1858 bore fruit. Dr. Junghuhn found that the latter could not be the C. ovata as named by M. Hasskarl; but he was himself equally mistaken in naming it C. Lucumæfolia, from a fancied resemblance to that species of Pavon.[106] The great mistake of the Dutch has been in propagating this worthless species, and spending vast sums of money on its cultivation, tempted by finding that its nature was hardy, and that it required less care than the delicate C. Calisaya.
In 1858 several of the plants sickened from the attacks of destructive insects (Bostrichus or Dermestes), not larger than the head of a pin, which pierced horizontally into the bark and wood of the stem and branches, where they laid their eggs and died. Dr. Junghuhn conjectures that they were imported from Peru; as they are not natives of the Java forests, and I found these boring insects in the wood of chinchona-trees in the forests of Caravaya. Twenty-nine trees were thus attacked in Java, and died.