Cinchona - Cultivation

Cultivation

The bark was very valuable to Europeans in expanding their access to and exploitation of resources in far-off colonies, and at home. Bark gathering was often environmentally destructive, destroying huge expanses of trees for their bark, with difficult conditions for low wages that did not allow the indigenous bark gatherers to settle debts even upon death.

Further exploration of the Amazon Basin and the economy of trade in various species of the bark in 18th century is captured by the extract from a book by Lardner Gibbon:

"...this bark was first gathered in quantities in 1849, though known for many years. The best quality is not quite equal to that of Yungas, but only second to it. There are four other classes of inferior bark, for some of which the bank pays fifteen dollars per quintal. The best, by law, is worth fifty-four dollars. The freight to Arica is seventeen dollars the mule load of three quintals. Six thousand quintals of bark have already been gathered from Yuracares. The bank was established in the year 1851. Mr. Haenke mentioned the existence of cinchona bark on his visit to Yuracares in 1796". (Source: Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon, by Lieut. Lardner Gibbon, USN. Vol.II, Ch.6, pp. 146-47.)

Asia

In 1860, a British expedition to South America led by Clements Markham brought back smuggled cinchona seeds and plants, which were introduced in several areas of the British Raj in India and Sri Lanka. In Sri Lanka, it was planted in the Hakgala Botanical Garden in January 1861. James Taylor, the pioneer of tea planting in Sri Lanka, was one of the pioneers of cinchona cultivation. By 1883, about 64,000 acres (260 km2) were in cultivation in Sri Lanka, with exports reaching a peak of 15 million pounds in 1886.

Mexico

In 1865, "New Virginia" and "Carlota Colony" were established in Mexico by former American Civil War Confederate Matthew Fontaine Maury. Postwar confederates were enticed there by Maury, now the "Imperial Commissioner of Immigration" for Emperor Maximillian of Mexico, and Archduke of Habsburg. All that survives today of those two colonies are the flourishing groves of cinchonas, the quinine-producing trees purchased by Maury using seeds purchased from England. These seeds were the first to be introduced into Mexico.