Sacramento daily record-union., 1890-07-19

tivates half million trees and a great
many are grown in the Benz province, far
ther to the east. 1t is impossible to get
any reliable statistics regarding Beni's
productions, because they 60 to the east
ern coast of the continent via the Amazon
and its tributaries. Indeed there are no
printed statistics of any kind concerning
Bolivia's exports and imports, and no his
tory of the country was ever written ex-
cept one small and very incomplete edi-
tion in Spanish, published forty years
ago.
As to the treatment of chincona-at this
distance from the equator it will not grow
at greater elevation than 5000 feet, nor
lower than 5000. The seeds, which are
sown in beds, are SO very small, lighter
than the lightest thistle down, that the
least breeze will blow them away, necessi-
tating great care in handling. When the
plants are about one foot high they are
transplanted, five or six feet apart, to the
sunny side of a mountain. 1t is asserted
that virgin soil is absolutely necessary,
and that the addition of any kind of fer
tilizer would be ruinous. Twice every
year the earth between the trees is slightly
disturbed by the primitive plows of the
country, and that is all the "cultiyation"
they require.
At the age of eight years the trees are
ready to strip; if the owner is hard up,
as is usually the case, part of them NAV
be utilized sooner and young plants put in
their places. In some sections it is Gus
tomary to remove from each tree about
quarter of its bark every year; but here
the tree is cut down to the ground, its
trunk and larger limbs peeled, and the
smallest branches carefully scraped, clear
to the leaves. An eight-year-old tree
yields from twelve to fifteen pounds of
bark, which in the present depressed state
of trade is worth only about seventy-fve
cents.
If the peeled-off bark happens to get
| wet, it loses much of its alkaloid ouinina:
| hence every planter has to build ample
sheds in which to dry it. The trunk of the
tree, after having been peeled, is entirely
valueless, not even good for firewood in a
country where fuel is scarce. The cost of
cutting, drying and packing the bark is
| about 81 80 per hundred weight. The
process Of packing is as follows A box is
| lined with coarse sacking, and then layer
of banana leaves. The bark is put in and
pressed down with machinery until the
box will hold no more, and the scale indi-
Gates exactly one hundred pounds. 1t is
| then removed from the box, banana leaves
and all. A second sack is added, and the
whole bound tight with raw-hide thongs.
There are no fewer than twenty-one va
rieties of the quina tree, some worthless.
others ranging in the amount of quinine
contained in the bark from one-half per
cent. to seven per cent. The buyer must
know his business, for if not an expert he
is likely to be badly sold. The "gold brick''
swlndle has not been so often perpetrated
In the United States as that of selling for
cascarilla the worthless bark of some other
tree. A well-known dealer of La Paz, who
ought to have known what he was about
alter years of experience, recently lost
| Sl60,000 at one fell swoop on a ship-load
OF bark supposed to be cascarilla, but
which, when arrived at an English market,
turned out to be aspecies of oak, good for
nothing at all. The only way to test the
bark is by tasting it. That which gives
out bitter taste Immediately on being
taken into the mouth will yield COM
paratively small amount of quinine, while
the best must be cbewed before the quinine
taste is apparent.
Not an ounce of Bolivia's cascarilla ever
went to the United Scates; it is all sent to
Europe via the Straits of Magellan. Not
withstanding the vast number of quina
trees in the country and the cneapness of
the raw material, there is no spot on earth
where quinine, as prepared in the form of
medicine, is SO expensive. Though the
people require great deal of it in cases of
mountain fever, terciana, ETC., none is made
in Bolivia. When the bark that is grown
here and exported for next door to nothing
gets back in the form of quinine, it be-
comes foreign product" has exorbitant
duties to pay and sells accordingly.
Whereas in other lands it yields the drug
gist profit of about so per cent. when
retailed at cent grain, it sells in La
Paz at the rate of ten cents per grain. If
some enterprising northerner would set up
an establishment in this country for ex-
tracing the alkaloid from the bark his
| fortune would soon be made.
FANNIE B. WARD.