Travels in Peru and India: While Superintending the Collection of Chinchona Plants and Seeds in South America, and Their Introduction into India.Markham, Clements R. (Clements Robert), Sir
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Travels in Peru and India: While Superintending the Collection of Chinchona Plants and Seeds in South America, and Their Introduction into India.
Markham, Clements R. (Clements Robert), Sir
Cinchona; India -- Description and travel; Peru -- Description and travel
It was no small advantage that this excellent site for a chinchona
plantation was close to the Government gardens, and that it would thus
be under the constant supervision of Mr. McIvor. It receives a supply
of moisture during both monsoons, and is, therefore, as good a position
as could have been selected on the higher plateau of the Neilgherries,
though there are many _sholas_ which will be found equally well adapted
for the growth of the hardier chinchonas. These precious plants will,
it is to be hoped, before very long, form large plantations on all
parts of the hills, and become one of the most important products
of the Neilgherries. In the mean while Mr. McIvor, the Government
Superintendent, using the Dodabetta site as an experimental plantation,
will be enabled to demonstrate the successful results of chinchona
culture, and to raise thousands of plants for the supply of private
enterprise.
The most extensive operations must, however, necessarily be carried
on at much lower elevations, where the _C. succirubra_, the species
richest in febrifugal alkaloids, will flourish best, and where vast
unoccupied forests afford space for plantations on a large scale. A
northern aspect is the one best adapted for the vigorous growth of
trees on the Neilgherry hills, and we, therefore, proceeded to examine
the forest-covered slopes overlooking the table-lands of Wynaad and
Mysore, for a site for the lower chinchona plantation. We started from
Ootacamund early one November morning, and rode across the central
plateau of the hills, consisting of rounded grassy undulations,
intersected by wooded _sholas_. In some of the hollows the streams
had formed large swamps, where there were extensive deposits of peat.
The traveller's bungalow of Pycarrah, the first on the road towards
Wynaad, is ten miles from Ootacamund, on the banks of a river of the
same name. Several huge boulders of syenite obstruct the stream and
cause it to foam noisily round them, and the wet stones were covered
with _Podostemads_, herbaceous branched floating plants, with the habit
of liverworts. We saw several otters playing in the water, and peering
at us from behind the rocks. Six miles beyond Pycarrah is the bungalow
of Neddiwuttum, on the edge of the rapid descent into Wynaad, and the
road descends from the upland slopes through a jungle where the ferns
first appear, and maiden-hair, ceterach, and other ferns grow by the
roadside. Some garden marigolds from England had been planted near the
Neddiwuttum bungalow, and they had spread themselves in masses over the
adjacent slopes.
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