Sikkim.—

In his report for 1878-1879 on the Government Cinchona plantations in Bengal, Dr. King states: page 15 —"The most interesting feature in the details of the crop is the fact that four acres of yellow barks (Cinchona Calisaya) planted during 1871-1872 yielded, when coppiced, at the rate of no less than 1,882 lbs. per acre. The present is the first season during which Calisaya has been cropped, and if this result can be taken as an indication of the rate of produce to be expected, the future prospects of the cultivation of this species are reassuring."

No locality with perfectly suitable climatic conditions having yet been found for the growth of Cinchona Calisaya in British Sikkim, Dr. King was authorised by the Government of Bengal to visit Java to examine the conditions under which the Dutch have there succeeded in growing the tree successfully.

The Government of Bengal, in reviewing the operations of the Cinchona plantations in British Sikkim for 1878-1879, arrives at the satisfactory conclusion that the enterprise is in every way a financial success. "The total amount of capital, with interest at 4 per cent., that has been sunk in the Cinchona plantations and in the manufactory is approximately 10 lakhs of rupees; the receipts for the year 1878-1879, therefore, after paying all expenses, yielded interest of about 4¼ per cent, on the capital outlay, and even if subsequent years show no improvement, as it may be confidently assumed they will do, a sufficient annual income would almost have been realized.

"But this system of computing profits falls very far short of doing justice to the real benefit which the Government has derived from the Cinchona plantations. The 5,500 lbs. of alkaloid taken by the different medical departments replaced an equal amount of quinine that would otherwise have been purchased and supplied to hospitals and dispersaries. At the very moderate rale of Rs. 80 per lb., the cost of this would have come to Rs. 4,40,000, and this amount, plus the actual sales to the public and Staits Settlements Rs. 41,540, in allRs. 4,81,540, is the true measure of the gain to Government from the Cinchona manufacture. looking at the financial question in this way, as may most fairly be done, the plantations by the end of the current year will have cleared off the entire capital that has been invested in them."

Up to the end of 1378-1379 Dr. King shows that the total saving effected to Government by the use of febrifuge in the place of quinine had already amounted to 7¾ lakhs of rupees. He continues: "As for the febrifuge itself, extended experience of its administration appears to have increased the confidence both of the medical profession and of the general public in its virtues as a febrifuge. Complaints of its nauseating effects are now seldom heard of, and there appears to be little doubt that these were originally largely due to the practice of giving too large doses of a drug which is really about as powerful a febrifuge as quinine."

With regard to price, Mr. C. H. Wood, the Government Quinologist, anticipates that the cost of the febrifuge will ultimately be brought to about eight annas an ounce.