Abstract
THE efforts of the English Government to establish the quinine-producing plants of South America in our Indian possessions have excited very general interest. Other European Governments are, however, not less alive than our own to the danger of depending any longer solely upon the chance products of the forests of South America for supplies of the most indispensable of medicines. Our neighbours, the Dutch, have for more than twelve years devoted much attention to the regular cultivation of cinchona trees in Java, and although the results obtained hitherto are not so favourable as we should have hoped, there is good reason to believe that the experience now gained will lead to great success in the future. The scale on which the Dutch experiments are being made will be best indicated by the fact that on the 31st March last there were in Java in nurseries and regular plantations nearly a million cinchona plants under cultivation. Besides these; more than 900,000 have been planted in the jungles, but have, unfortunately, owing to a variety of causes, already mostly disappeared. In the present pamphlet M. von Gorkom gives the experience of the Dutch cultivators, as well as a general review of the literature of the subject. Appended to the pamphlet are tables showing the present state of cinchona-culture in Java, the rate of growths of the plants, and the results of chemical analyses of the various species cultivated. Monsieur van Gorkom has had the advantage of having his work rendered into the more generally accessible German language, by a gentleman who has himself taken so distinguished a part in cinchona-culture as to induce a jury of the French International Exhibition of 1867 to confer a gold medal upon him, while assigning to Markham, Mclvor, and others silver medals only.
Cinchona Plantations in Java. Die Chinacultur auf Java.
Von J. W. Van Gorkom, ans dems Hollandischen übertragen von C. Hasskarl. (Leipzig, 1869.)
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Cinchona Plantations in Java Die Chinacultur auf Java . Nature 1, 212 (1869). https://doi.org/10.1038/001212b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/001212b0