No. 350, REVENUE, 23RD JULY 1896.
three Government estates carry a grand total of 6 million pounds of dry bark. These results
which have so surprised me that I have had all the calculation checked are seen at a glance in.
the following table :—
—
Trees up-
rooted during
1891–95.
Bark yielded.
Trees left at
1st April
1895.
Bark left at
1st April
1895.
Dodabetta ..
..
..
..
.. ..
6,720
51,522
5 6 8 , 2 9 5
4,357,090
Nedivattam ..
..
..
..
..
..
4,713
17,081
8 9 , 6 6 6
3 2 4 , 9 7 0
Hooker..
..
..
..
..
..
. .
6 , 9 4 9
27,008
373,044
1,449,064
Total . .
18,382
95,611
1 , 0 3 1 , 0 0 5
6,131,124
From the foregoing calculation I have entirely omitted the 663,328 hybrid trees which,
according to the Director's returns, existed on the four plantations at 1st April last. If the
bark on these be calculated as equal, when coppiced to four pounds per tree, there is an
addition to the resources of the plantation of about 2 ½ million pounds of bark. The total
amount of bark which the plantation would yield, if coppiced at once, is, according to these
estimates, therefore over 8 ½ million pounds.
It is probable, however, that calculation founded on the number of trees may be fallacious ;
for the numbers are continually being altered by death and accident ; and it is impossible,
short of an annual census (which would cut more than it would be worth) to estimate ac-
curately the number of trees that actually exist. It may be advisable therefore to cut down
these figures by half and to reckon 4 ¼ million, instead of 8 ½ million, pounds of dry bark as the
quantity that would be obtained were the whole plantation coppiced now. On the other hand
it must be recollected that the trees, if worked on a rotation of twenty years, would yield
during that period repeated crops of bark by the stripping and mossing process prior to their
finally being coppiced. As a check on these calculations based on the number of the trees on the
plantation, 1 shall now give a calculation based on the yield per acre. Captain Campbell Walker's
survey showed the actual area to be 848.71. acres. Since the date of his report the Wood
estate has been reduced from 72 acres to 27, being a diminution of 45 acres. The acreage
of the other estates remains exactly the same, and the whole area now under Cinchona may be
therefore taken roughly at 800 acres. Statistics show that the average yield on Dodabetta of
an acre, when coppiced, is about 4,000 lb. (excluding root bark) and that the amount of bark
yielded by the same acre by stripping and grassing subsequently to 1880 and prior to coppicing
appears, from the few areas of which an accurate record has been kept, to be about 1,450 lb.
The total yield of the whole plantation, if coppiced at once, would therefore according to these
figures be 800 × 4,000= 3,200,000 lb. of dry bark. And the amount obtainable by stripping
over a period of twenty years would, at 1,450lb per acre, stand thus :—800 × 1,430= 1,160,000
pounds of dry bark.
The actual stock of bark of all kinds in the plantation thus comes out as 4,360,000 lb.
12.
Annual outturn of bark and quinine.—T h e
c a l c u l a t i o n p e r a c r e a p p e a r s t o m e t o a f f o r d
a safer basis for estimating the amount of bark which can annually be taken as the normal crop ;
in other words of estimating the amount of dividend which may be drawn from the estate with-
out encroaching on the captial. The oldest trees on tile plantation are now about thirty-three
years of age, and experiments in coppicing show that good returns in the way of crop can be
obtained from coppice shoots from twelve to fifteen years old. The Director is of opinion,
and in this I agree, that twenty years may safely Le taken as the rotation on which the plantation
may be worked. On this basis, the annual crop would, therefore, be 218,000 lb. from which
t here coul d be ext ract ed (at 3 ½ per cent . ) 7. 630 l b. of qui ni ne. But t he bark cont ai ns a cert ai n
percentage of Cinchonidine, Cinchonine and Amorphous quinine ; there would, in addition,
therefore, be a considerable quantity of Cinchona febrifuge.
13. Suggestions for future management.—In view of the early retirement of Mr. Lawson,
the question of future management is a pressing one. There are, it appears to me, two arrange-
ments which might be made, and these are first to find a successor for Mr. Lawson who will
perform exactly the same duties as he does ; second to dissociate the appointment of Govern-
ment Botanist from that of Superintendent of the Cinchona Plantations and Factory The
second is the arrangement favoured by Mr. Lawson, who has addressed Government on the
subject. Mr. Lawson's proposal is that a skilled Botanist should be got out from England
who should have his head-quarters in Madras (where the Government Herbarium should be
located) and who should fulfil the functions of Government Botanist and of referee and
adviser to Government on all matters connected with scientific horticulture ; who should
lecture on Botany in the Madras Colleges and act as Examiner in Botany in the University ;
and part of whose recognised duty it should be to carry out the botanical exploration of the
Presidency—many parts of which towards the west and south are still, from a scientific point
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