Dr. Junghuhn established his new plantations on the slopes of the Malawar mountains, where he has found that the C. Calisaya is much more sensitive than his so-called C. Lucumæfolia; and that very slight differences in temperature, in elevation, in light, in shade, and in moisture, exercise a very evident influence on the former, while the latter remain quite unaffected by them. He considers that the best conditions for the growth of C. Calisaya on the Malawar mountains (between latitude 7° and 8° S.) are good loose forest soil and moderate shade, at an elevation from 5000 to 5700 feet above the sea. The C. Calisayas, when they receive light only on their crowns, and are surrounded by the dark wood, have a rapidly rising, slender, tall stem, devoid of side branches; whilst, when they stand on clear open spots, they grow much stronger in width and thickness, but are shorter, and have numerous side branches.
The following is Dr. Junghuhn's method of cultivation. Pots, made of bamboo-joints, are loosely filled with finely-sifted earth, composed of one-fourth part of black volcanic sand (felspar, hornblende, and magnet iron) mixed with brown forest soil. The pots are then placed in the interior of the forests, on beds of heaped-up earth laid out in the form of terraces, on the declivities of the mountains. A roof of dry grass, supported by stakes, and high enough to admit a side light, protects the pots from the falling rain-drops. These seed-beds are from 200 to 500 feet long, and extend in parallel lines between the trees, like the steps of an amphitheatre. Each pot receives only one seed, and the earth is kept constantly moist by watering twice daily with the squeeze of a sponge.[107]
The pots remain standing on the seed-beds until the plants are about half a foot high, which takes about eight months; and during this time they are turned every five or eight days, in order to prevent the crooked growth of the plants, which always turn to the side where most light falls on the beds. For the purpose of planting out, a few principal broad roads are made along the mountain ridge through the wood, united at intervals by cross footpaths, twenty-five feet asunder. At the side of these footpaths, and twenty-five feet from each other, wide trenches are dug, and filled up with cleansed earth, so as to make slightly raised mounds, with gutters to carry off the rain-water. The young plants are placed in the loose earth on these mounds, and four strong stakes, driven into the ground round them, are fastened together four or five feet above their heads. This protects them from falling boughs, drip, and wild animals, for some years. Thus thousands of paths have been cut in the forests, and planted with chinchona-trees, which are growing well. There are now nine nurseries in Java—Tjibodas on Mount Gêdé; Tjiniruan on the south-west slope, and Tjiborum on the southern slope of Mount Malawar; Genting; Reong Gunung; Kawah Tjirvidei in the Kendeng mountains; one on Mount Patna; and two others.
Dr. Junghuhn, in adopting the above method of cultivation, and in altering M. Hasskarl's arrangements, has run into an opposite extreme. His system of planting the young chinchonas in the forests under dense shade[108] is most erroneous; and the way in which the seeds are treated quite accounts for the small number which germinate.
On the 31st of December, 1860, the number of chinchona-plants in Java was as follows:—
| C. Calisaya | 7,316 | plants, | and | 1030 | cuttings. |
| C. lancifolia | 80 | " | " | 28 | " |
| Species procured by M. Hasskarl | 939,809 | " | " | 18 | " |
| Total | 947,205 | plants.[109] |
Besides 700,264 seeds in stock, or sown. The extreme height attained by the tallest C. Calisaya was, at the same date, fifteen feet, and by the worthless species twenty-eight feet. One of the trees of C. lancifolia had also attained a height of fifteen feet.
Dr. de Vry, the eminent chemist who is associated with Dr. Junghuhn, and who had for two years previously occupied himself with the study of the chinchona alkaloids, has been actively engaged in careful investigations of the chinchona barks in Java. With regard to the C. Calisaya his results have been very satisfactory. From the trunk-bark of a plant of this species, six years old, he obtained, in August, 1860, 5 per cent. of alkaloids; and from that of the branches, 2½ per cent. But the specimens of C. Calisaya bark from Java, which have been sent to the Exhibition of 1862, have a very different appearance, and are much thinner than those from South America. This circumstance leads to the inference that the present system of cultivation in Java is erroneous. With the species introduced by M. Hasskarl, Dr. de Vry was not so successful. The leaves, flowers, fruit, and bark of this species were sent to Mr. Howard by Dr. Junghuhn; and it was found that the names of C. ovata, given it by M. Hasskarl, and of C. Lucumæfolia by Dr. Junghuhn, were equally erroneous. It was clear that it was one of the numerous worthless species, not previously described, and Mr. Howard, in the seventh number of his work, has named it C. Pahudiana,[110] after M. Charles F. Pahud, who, as Minister of the Colonies, sent M. Hasskarl to South America in 1852, and who, being appointed Governor-General of Netherlands India in 1855,[111] did so much to ensure the success of the chinchona experiment in Java. Up to 1860 Dr. de Vry had only obtained 0.4 per cent. of alkaloids from the bark of C. Pahudiana, and Mr. Howard's examination coincides with the analysis of Dr. de Vry in pronouncing it an inferior sort. In 1861, however, he obtained 3 per cent. of alkaloids from the bark of the roots of a C. Pahudiana plant eight years old, and 1¼ per cent. from the trunk-bark. From a tree aged two years and three months he only got 0.09 per cent. from the trunk-bark, and 1.9 per cent. from the root-bark, of which he states the greater part to be quinine; while in the trunk-bark there was not a trace of that alkaloid. This result leads Dr. de Vry to conjecture that the quinine, once formed in the roots, is employed in the growth of the plant, and that, when it attains its full growth, the trunk-bark will also be rich in quinine. If this should not be the case, he hopes that the roots of the young plants may be used profitably for the manufacture of quinine. It is to be feared that the quinine in the trunk-bark will not increase with age, for, while in the younger tree there was 1.9 per cent. of alkaloids in the roots, chiefly quinine, and 0.09 in the trunk-bark, in the older one there was 3 per cent. in the roots, of which 1.8 was quinine, and 1¼ per cent. in the trunk-bark, in which there was only the minutest trace of quinine. Thus, while the quantity of quinine decreased or remained stationary in the roots, the trunk-bark was still destitute of that precious alkaloid.
It is possible that Dr. de Vry, in his earnest desire to discover quinine in a species upon which so much labour and anxiety, and such vast sums of money, had been expended, may have been deceived by appearances. Both from the form of the capsules, the absence of quinine in the upper bark, and the locality whence it was procured, there is every reason to fear that the C. Pahudiana is a worthless kind; and the bark of this species, which has been sent to the Exhibition of 1862, is so evidently valueless that no dealer would buy it. In all valuable species there is a good percentage of alkaloids in the upper bark, and a very much smaller proportion, which, too, is amorphous and of little commercial value, in the bark of the roots. This law of nature, the existence of which is proved by all experience, would have to be reversed in order to enable the Dutch to extract large supplies of quinine from the roots of a species, such as C. Pahudiana, which contains none in the upper bark.