Cinchona cultivation in Darjeeling District started around 1861 – 1862. Sir Joseph Hooker sent the first cinchona seeds in 1861 to Dr. Thomas Anderson, the then Superintendent of the Calcutta Botanic Garden, who conducted all the cinchona experiments in Bengal until he left in 1869. In 1861, Government deputed him to inspect the cinchona plantations in Java, Indonesia. He received every assistance and attention from the authorities there, and brought back with him a large number of healthy plants. A few were retained for experiments in Bengal, and the rest he took to the nursery at Ootacamund, Tamil Nadu. Dr. Anderson suggested the establishment of a cinchona nursery in Darjeeling. The proposal was approved, and a site was selected near the summit of Senchal in the midst of dense forest. The environment in Senchal proved too severe for cinchona, so in April, 1863, the plants were temporarily removed to a garden at Lebong, a comparatively warmer place. For a permanent plantation, Rangjo valley at Rangbi, 20 kms away from Darjeeling town, was found and decided. The Rangjo valley lay on the south eastern slope of a long spur, projecting from Senchal, at an elevation between 1,300 and 4,000 feet above the sea. L.S.S.O’Malley writes, “here the cultivation, on an extensive scale, of those species of cinchona which contain quinine and allied febrifuge alkaloids in their bark was begun in 1864. The plantation was started with one hundred plants each of Cinchona Succirubra and Cinchona Officinalis, and two plants of Cinchona Calisaya, at an elevation of about 4,000 feet. The stocks of plants rapidly increased, so that ten years after the inception of the undertaking, there were nearly three million trees in existence, mostly of Cinchona Succirubra, and the original clearing on the slope of the Rangbi had been extended in a south easterly direction to the Rishop and Mangpu ridges in the Rangjo valley, while new extensions, comprising in 1881 about 750 acres, had been opened at Labdah on the northern and Sitong on the southern slope of the Rayeng valley. For about the first decade the majority of the trees on the plantation were Cinchona Succirubra, the species which yields red bark, poor in quinine but rich in a mixture of febrifuge alkaloids allied to quinine. The remainder of the trees were mostly of Cinchona Calisaya, or Ledgeriana, as it is now called, the species yielding yellow bark, rich in quinine.”
In 1868 – 70, Dr Anderson submitted a proposal, for the manufacture of a cheap but powerful febrifuge (a medicine to reduce fever), well suited for use in native hospitals and charitable dispensaries at the Rangbi plantation. The purchase of machinery for the experiment was sanctioned, and as a result of which a factory was established at Mungpoo in connection with the Rangbi plantation. In 1874, the manufacture of Cinchona febrifuge was begun, and the first year’s working yielded about 50 pounds of febrifuge. Upto 1887, only Cinchona febrifuge was manufactured. In 1880, Dr. King, the then Superintendent, initiated the policy of converting the plantation from one in which red bark trees, poor in quinine, preponderated, into one of quinine yielding species. In following this policy, the yellow bark quinine yielding species, Cinchona Calisaya, was planted out in gradually increasing numbers. This substitution was pushed on with such vigor that beginning in 1880, there were 4,000,000 red bark trees to 500,000 yellow bark and hybrid trees together, and by 1901, there were over 2 million yellow bark and hybrid trees to 200,000 red bark trees.
By maintaining these plantations, the objective of the government was to supply the hospitals and the people with a cheap remedy for malarial fever. In 1887, the manufacture of sulphate of quinine was commenced in the Mangpoo factory by a process of extraction by fusel oil ( a mixture of several alcohols produced as a by-product of alcoholic fermentation ), elaborated by Mr. Wood, formerly Quintologist and Mr. Gammie, the Deputy Superintendent of the Plantations. From 1887 onwards the factory continued to produce, in addition to cinchona febrifuge, sulphate of quinine, in yearly increasing quantities. The factory was now extended, in order that, it may turn out in the future, a minimum of 20,000 pounds ( about 9,000 Kg ). The issue of sulphate of quinine in 1887 – 88 was about 250 lbs, in 1900 – 01, over 11,000 lbs, and in 1905 – 06, nearly 16,000 lbs. A new system was instituted in 1892. By this system, the sulphate of quinine was sold to the public through the post offices in small packets, containing 5 grains, at the price of one pice / paise per packet, so as to enable even the poorest native to purchase a dose of the drug.
The plantations in the Rangjo and Rayeng valleys proved too small as compared to the number of trees that were required to keep pace with the increasing demand for febrifuge and quinine. So, accordingly, in 1883, the first outlying plantation of 300 acres was started in the Ranjung valley in Kalimpong. But the rainfall here was too heavy to allow cinchona to be successfully grown, and the plantation was exhausted and finally given up in 1893. The Nimbong plantation of about 500 acres, also situated in the same tract, was purchased in 1893 from a private company. No extensions were attempted there, but the trees standing on the plantation as purchased were gradually used up, till in 1896, the last was taken up and the plantation abandoned. In 1899, a fresh extension of about 900 acres was commenced in the Damsong forest block, situated about 10 miles north east of Kalimpong, near the junction of the Rangpo and Teesta rivers on the borders of Sikkim. In this new block, which is known as the Munsong Division, there were about 500 acres under Cinchona Ledgerians, with about 1,200,000 plants.
By,
S.K.Ghising
References
- L.S.S. O’Malley, Bengal District Gazetteers Darjeeling.
- Image Source : File photo.
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