THE QUININE TRADE IN BOLIVIA.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3513, 11 October 1882, Page 4

THE QUININE TRADE IN BOLIVIA.

Bolivia is one of the countries from which ■we get large quantities of quinine, the quantity produced annually there being f romSOOO to 10,000 cwt. The market value of this article has risen considerably of late. In 1866 the price was about £10 per cwt., in 1872 it was £14 per cwt. The want of foresight displayed by the merchants, and the system employed to obtain the bark, has resulted in the destruction of the greater part of the forests ; little by little the trees have disappeared -without any effort being made to replace them ; the result is that in order to obtain the bark it is necessary to go further into the interior and to travel great distances. In consequence of this some of the merchants have planted large quantities of the trees in convenient places with the object of having a large and certain supply of this important drug. They commenced their work in 1873, and their example has been followed by many others. There now exists in Bolivia a considerable quantity of these trees, which promise to give very profitable results to the proprietors, at the same time assuring vis a continuanco of fchis precious drug which had already begun to grow scarce. A German house from Le Paz, who some time back acquired immense tracks of land in Bolivia, has successfully planted about 900,000 trees, a part of which ■will be ready for cutting in a year or two. Tn this plantation especial care has been taken to plant the best kind of trees only, ■which unfortunately, was not always done by the natives in their plantations. It is calculated that a tree seven years old will yield three kilogrammes of dry bark, and it has already been satisfrctarily proved by chemical analysis that the bark of the cultivated tree is superior in richness to that of the mountain tree.