England, with that provident foresight which characterizes much of her political economy, several years ago sent agents into Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, under the direction of the celebrated botanist Mr. Spruce, and made a collection of cinchona plants, which were taken to Java, Ceylon, and India, and there have been transplanted and cultivated with great success and profit. It is found that under proper treatment the tree produces a very much greater amount of quinine, of a much superior quality, and at less cost than the bark can be gathered in the mountains of South America, so that shipments have almost entirely ceased, and the market receives its supply from the British possessions. [Illustration: A HOME IN THE ANDES.] Another plant is coming into prominence, and its export has very largely increased within the last few years. This is the coca, from which cocoaine and other medicinal and nerve stimulants are made. In the valleys of the Andes there are, and have been from time immemorial, extensive plantations of the coca shrub. It is indigenous in these regions, but the natives of Peru and Bolivia cultivate the plant in terraces which are likened to the vineyards of Tuscany and the Holy Land. _Erythroxylon coca_ is allied to the common flax, and forms, says Dr. Johnston, a shrub of six or eight feet, resembling our blackthorn, with small white flowers and bright green leaves. The leaves, of which there may be three or four crops in the year, are collected by the women and children, and dried in the sun, after which they are ready for use, and form the usual money exchange in some districts, the workmen being paid in coca-leaves. Among the Peruvians and Bolivians the coca-leaves are rolled with a little unslaked lime into a ball (_acullico_) and chewed in the mouth. Coca-chewing resembles in some respects the smoking of opium. Both must be taken apart, and with deliberation. The coca chewer, three or four times in the day, retires to a secluded spot, lays down his burden, and stretches himself perhaps beneath a tree. Slowly from the _chuspa_, or little pouch, which is ever at his girdle, the leaves and the lime are brought forth. The ball is formed and chewed for perhaps fifteen or thirty minutes, and then the toiler rises refreshed as quietly as he lay down, and returns to that monotonous round of labor in which the coca is his only and much-prized distraction. Some take it to excess, and to these the name of _coquero_ is given. This is particularly common among white Peruvians of good family, and hence the name “Blanco Coquero” in that country is a term of reproach equivalent to our “habitual drunkard.” The Indians regard the coca with extreme reverence. Von Tschudi, the Austrian scientist, who made the most thorough study of the ancient customs of the Incas, says, “During divine worship the priests chewed coca-leaves, and unless they were supplied with them it was believed that the favor of the gods could not be propitiated.