Rapid destruction of chinchona-trees in South America—Importance of their introduction into other countries—M. Hasskarl's mission—Chinchona plantations in Java.

The collection of bark in the South American forests was conducted from the first with reckless extravagance; no attempt worthy the name has ever been made either with a view to the conservancy or cultivation of the chinchona-trees; and both the complete abandonment of the forests to the mercy of every speculator, as in Peru, Ecuador, and New Granada, and the barbarous meddling legislation of Bolivia, have led to equally destructive results. The bark-collector enters the forest and destroys the first clump of chinchona-trees he finds, without a thought of any measure to preserve the continuance of a supply of bark. Thus, in Apollobamba, where the trees once grew thickly round the village, no full-grown one is now to be found within eight or ten days' journey:[85] and so utterly improvident are the collectors that, in the forests of Cochabamba, they bark the tree without felling, and thus ensure its death; or, if they cut it down, they actually neglect to take off the bark on the side touching the ground, to save themselves the trouble of turning the trunk over.[86]

A century ago Condamine[87] raised a warning voice against the destruction that was going on in the forests of Loxa. Ulloa[88] advised the Government to check it by legislation; soon afterwards Humboldt reported that 25,000 chinchona-trees were destroyed every year, and Ruiz[89] protested against the custom of barking the trees, and leaving them to be destroyed by rot. But nothing was ever done in the way of conservancy, either by the Government, or by private speculators whose subsistence depended on a continued supply of bark. Dr. Weddell, alluding to this recklessness as regards C. Calisaya, observes that "the forests of Bolivia, rich as they are, cannot long resist the continued attacks to which they have been recently exposed. He who, in Europe, sees these enormous and ever-increasing masses of bark arrive, may perhaps believe that they will continue to do so; but he who sees the chinchona-trees in their native forests, and knows the real truth, is obliged to think otherwise."

There is, however, no danger of the actual extirpation of the trees unless the plan is adopted of leaving them standing, and stripped of their bark, as in the Loxa forests. Poeppig says that, in these cases, the trees in the tropical forests are attacked by rot with extraordinary rapidity; hosts of insects penetrate the stem to complete the work of destruction, and the healthy root becomes infected. Thus the valuable species called C. Uritusinga has really been almost exterminated.

But where the trees are felled it is only necessary to observe the precaution of hewing the stem as near as possible to the root, in order to be sure of its after-growth.[90] Under these circumstances, after six years the young trees are ready to be felled again in the milder regions, and after twenty years in cold and exposed localities. From the base of the stems, when not barked, a number of shoots spring out between bark and wood; and Dr. Karsten says that, though an interval of rest of twelve or fifteen years must be given to the forests where the chinchona-trees have thus been felled, this only promotes further investigation in the endless untrodden forests, while, in the mean time, the younger generation is growing up in those which have already been exhausted.[91]

The danger, therefore, is not in the actual annihilation of the chinchona-trees in South America, but lest, with the increasing demand, there should be long intervals of time during which the supply would cease, owing to the forests being exhausted, and requiring periods of rest. In many districts this is already the case. The bark which comes from Loxa is in the minutest quills, and in the forests of Caravaya, after an interval of rest of several years, the root-shoots had scarcely grown to a sufficient size to yield anything but quill bark. Then again the supplies of bark from South America are not nearly sufficient to meet the demand, and the price is kept so high as to place this inestimable remedy beyond the means of millions of natives of fever-visited regions. For these reasons the incalculable importance of introducing the chinchona-plant into other countries adapted for its growth, and thus escaping from entire dependence on the South American forests, has long occupied the attention of scientific men in Europe.

In 1839 Dr. Royle, in his 'Illustrations of Himalayan Botany,'[92] recommended the introduction of the chinchona-plants into India, pointing out the Neilgherry and Silhet hills as suitable sites for the experiment, and Lord William Bentinck took some interest in the project. M. FÉe had previously recommended the introduction of these plants into the French colonies;[93] and in 1849 both Dr. Weddell[94] and M. Delondre[95] strongly urged the adoption of this measure. The former declared that posterity would bless those who should carry this idea into execution.[96]

The Dutch, who possess in the island of Java a range of forest-covered mountains admirably adapted for chinchona cultivation, were, however, the first to take active steps for its introduction into the Eastern Hemisphere; and their praiseworthy exertions deserve, what they lay claim to with justice, the approbation of the whole civilized world. The experiment in Java, however, has only been tried with a very limited number of valuable species of chinchonÆ, and has met with very limited success, owing to the introduction of worthless kinds, and to mistakes in the cultivation, committed during the first few years.

For the last thirty years Dutch scientific men, among whom the name of the botanist Blume may be mentioned, had urged their Government to undertake the introduction of chinchona-plants into Java. But it was not until the year 1852 that M. Pahud, the Dutch Minister of the Colonies, was authorized to employ an agent to collect plants and seeds of valuable species in Peru, and to convey them to Java. He selected, for this important mission, M. Justus Charles Hasskarl, a botanist who had for some time superintended the gardens in Java, but who was a stranger to South America—ignorant of the country, the people, and the languages—unacquainted with the forests where the chinchona-trees are found, and who had never seen them growing in their natural state. He sailed for Peru in December, 1852, with orders not to confine himself to the Calisaya plant, but to collect plants and seeds of as many different species as possible. His original orders were to proceed from Guayaquil to the chinchona-forests of Loxa in the first instance; but he changed his plan, and, landing at Lima, crossed the cordilleras in May, 1853.

It would be difficult, in making a chance journey from the coast to the forests of the Eastern Andes, to hit upon a part where valuable species of chinchona-trees are not known to exist. There are such spaces—forest tracts—intervening between the more favoured regions, where only species of little value are found, such as C. pubescens, C. scrobiculata, &c.; and on one of these, between the region of grey barks in Huanuco and that of C. Calisaya in Caravaya, M. Hasskarl, through being unacquainted with the localities, was so unfortunate as to stumble. He crossed the Andes by the road from Lima to Tarma, and descended the eastern slopes into the montaÑas of Vitoc, Uchubamba, and Monobamba; returning thence by Xauxa into the loftier region of the Andes. Near Uchubamba he saw trees which he believed to be C. Calisaya; but that species is never found to the north of the province of Caravaya. He however collected a quantity of seeds of this imaginary C. Calisaya, and four packets of a species which he called C. ovata, with smaller quantities of C. pubescens and C. amygdalifolia.

The species called by M. Hasskarl C. ovata now forms the bulk of the chinchona-plantations in Java. He found it on dry sunny hills, without much shelter from the sun, in a very sandy micaceous soil, at an elevation of 5500 to 6000 feet above the sea. It is sometimes a mere shrub, but occasionally rises to fifteen or twenty-five feet, with elegant pink flowers and reddish fruit. The native name is cascarilla crespilla chica; and as the crespilla grande is the C. ovata of Weddell, it is probable that M. Hasskarl was thus led into the mistake of calling his new species C. ovata. The leaves are smooth above, with a felt-like pubescence on the under surface, and the hairy capsules are probably an indication of the worthlessness of the species.[97] In fact, no good kinds are found in this part of the country, and all the seeds sent home by M. Hasskarl were equally valueless. He collected specimens of C. lanceolata of Pavon, at a place called "Escalera de San Rafael," on the road between Uchubamba and Xauxa.[98]

From Xauxa M. Hasskarl went to Cuzco, and thence in September to Sandia in the province of Caravaya; but finding that the seeds of chinchona-trees are ripe in August, and that he had arrived too late, he returned to Lima, and finally took up his abode at Arequipa until the following year. In March, 1854, he again set out, crossed the Andes to Puno, and, after wandering over part of Bolivia, at length reached the little village of Sina in Caravaya, near the frontier between Peru and Bolivia, in April. He had assumed the feigned name of JosÉ Carlos MÜller, and had printed it on his cards, one of which he presented to the governor of Sina, Don Juan de la Cruz Gironda, requesting him to procure a supply of chinchona-plants for him. Gironda refused, but introduced the stranger to a Bolivian named Clemente Henriquez, a clever and intelligent, but dishonest and unscrupulous man. Henriquez agreed to procure 400 plants of C. Calisaya for a certain sum, part of which was to be paid down, and the remainder on delivery of the plants. M. Hasskarl then went on to the village of Sandia, where he took up his abode, without entering the chinchona forests, and waited there until the plants should arrive. Meanwhile Henriquez employed an Indian to collect the stipulated number of plants, round a place called Ychu-corpa,[99] on the frontier of Bolivia; and when they were brought to him he went to Sandia, delivered them to M. Hasskarl, and received his money. An outcry was afterwards raised against Henriquez, by the people inhabiting villages bordering on the chinchona forests, who considered that their interests would be injured by the exportation of the plants: they declared they would cut his feet off if they caught him, and he has ever since been obliged to live at Pelechuco, in Bolivia.[100] This feeling has rendered any future operations of a like nature exceedingly difficult.

M. Hasskarl left Sandia with these plants in June, 1854, but they were not placed in Wardian cases at the port of Islay until August, and on the 27th of that month he finally left the coast of Peru in a sailing vessel, and shaped his course direct for Java.[101] He arrived at Batavia with twenty Wardian cases on December 13th, but all his plants have since died except two.[102] On his arrival M. Hasskarl was intrusted with the cultivation of chinchona-plants in Java, with the rank of Assistant-Resident, and was made a Knight of the Netherlands Lion, and Commander of the Order of the Oaken Crown.[103]

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.

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:—

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.

It is much to be regretted that the scientific men in Java, instead of exerting all their skill and talent in the work of cultivating C. Calisaya and C. lancifolia, of the value of which there is no doubt, should have filled the forests of Java with a kind which from the first was known to be of very doubtful value, was unknown in commerce, and the cultivation of which will, it is to be feared, only end in loss and disappointment.

The valuable species were found to be much more tender, and more sensitive to external unfavourable influences, than the C. Pahudiana; the latter was therefore propagated rapidly, and unwisely allowed to outstrip the other kinds in the race, and the consequence has been that it has gained an immense preponderance. Thus, so far as valuable species of chinchona-plants are concerned, the Dutch experiment in Java has been attended by a very small measure of success. After three years the Dutch gardeners only had forty plants of valuable species in Java, and after six years they had only increased their stock to seven thousand plants. It will presently be seen that far greater results were attained in India within eighteen months of the first introduction of the chinchona-plants.

Yet, so great are the difficulties of this most important undertaking, that, in spite of the comparative failure in Java, the highest praise and admiration are due both to M. Hasskarl and to his successors. They have devoted great ability, no ordinary amount of scientific knowledge, and untiring perseverance to this good work; and, now that they have received plants of other really valuable species from India, there is a prospect that the chinchona cultivation in Java may eventually attain such a measure of success as will entitle Dr. Junghuhn and Dr. de Vry to the gratitude of their countrymen.[114]