Cinchona Cultivation in Guatemala

Cinchona Cultivation in Guatemala A Brief Historical Review up to 1943 WILSON POPENOE Director, Escueta .Agricola Panamet·icana, Tegucigalpa, Hond>Uras • 'l'~UNTJm nr u. s. .l.'' Re:vrmtt.>cl !rn1:11 ECI)NQW:C lrol' NY, April-Jtme, 1949, Vol. 3, No. 2, page~~ ·lso-UI'/. Reprinted from EcoNOMIC BOTANY, April-Junc, 1949, Vol. 3, No. 2, pages 150-15.1. Cinchona Cultivation in Guatemala A Brief Historical Review up to 1943 The first American planting of cinchona was in 1860 in Guatemala and Jamaica. Subsequent investments in Guatemala by private and governmental agencies, negligible until stimulat ed by the recent war, have culminated t oday in plantations aggregating only about 1,000 acres with 1 3/ 4 million t rees. WTLSON POPENOE Director, Esm¿ela Ag1·icola Panamericana, Tegtwigalpa, Honcltwas Introduction tion, but the Briti h were not far be At fir t glance it seems remarkable hincl. The year that IIasskarl left for that two hundred years should have the Ande. ( 1852), e.fforts were made to elapsed between the discovery of cin get the British government to send out chona (about 1630) and its acloption as an expeclition. These did not bear fruit a cultivated plant. But this is not so until 1859 when Clements R. Markham strange when we pause to recall that was instructed to organi e an explora cinchona, in it more valuable forms, is tion of all important cincbona-procluc not an easy tree to cultivate, and that ing regions ancl bring to India planting there were ample supplies of wilcl bark material-seed and young trees-of as to meet demands in Europe ancl Amer many pronusmg forms as possible. ica. Thu began one of the most dramatic It was not until the British and Dutch and important series of events in the undertook the development of the Asi entire history of plant introduction. atic tropics that the necessity for bring 'l'he work was succes ful; but it re ing cinchona into cultivation became ap mained for Charles Ledger, an English parent. Throughout the ludies malaria man living in pper Perú (now Bo wa a scourge a.ffecting millions of livia), to lay the foundations of the people. Serious-mincled investigators modern cinchona indu try in the Far who visited the cinchona forests of the East by obtaining seeds of a superior Ande returned to Europe stating that strain from the region of Coroico in the upply of wilcl bark was clwindling, 1865. the trees in danger of complete exter Cinchona in Jamaica mination. Markham clid not limit his program In 1813 Dr. Ainslie bemoaned the to India; he included Jamaica. So far fact that J ndia did not grow her own as we have been able to ascertain, this cinchona bark, a sentiment reiterated by was the beginning of cinchona cultiva Dr. Royce in 1835; ancl in Java the tion in the American tropics. In his botanist Fritze, Miquel ancl others classic work, "Peruvian Bark" (Lon urged the introduction of the tree into clon, 1880). Markham states that the that i lancl. :fir t eeds were ent to Jamaica in 1860 'l'he Dutch were the :first to take ac- and planted on the Blue Mountains near 150 CINCHONA CULTIVATION IN GUATEMALA 151 Bath. About 1868 a further supply of to foster the introduction and establish seeds was sent to tbat island from Cey ment of cinchona trees. In 1 7 Pre i lon. The later history-and ultimate dent Barrios issued a decree ponsoring failure-of cincho na planting in J a the project, and offered prize to those maica need not be recounted here. who would make plantings. Under the terms of this decree, the Sarg brothers First Attempts in Guatemala received in 1882 the sum of $1,500 for Though Markham ent seeds to Mex their planting of 2,200 trees, which at ico, where they were planted near Cór• that time ''ere two years or more of doba in 1872, nothing carne of the ef age. Pilli states that the Alcalde of fort; and we can turn our attention to Cobán, who had the. e trees examined, Guatemala, the only tropical American reported that they were of two species, country where serious attempts were Calisaya and S1tccintbra. made to grow cinchona in these early In connection with the taxonomy of days. Cinchona, not only in the early day Emili Pilli, who brought together in but right clown to the present time, the 1942 much documentary material re greatest caution mu t be exercised. garding the history of cinchona culture Early studies suggested, and more re in thi Republic, states that Julio Ros cent investigations have amply demon signan was the first to plant the tree strated, that cinchonas in the wild are here. The date is given a 1 60, the subject to such extreme variation-and location near Cobán. Rossignon is there are so many hybrid -that pe lmown also for havincr been the :first to ci:fic names may mean very little. send seeds of teosinte (E1whlaena) to 'l'he next step of importance seems to Europe. Pilli states that Ro signan 's have been taken by the government of cinchona trees received little attention Guatemala which in 1 83 contracted and :finally disappeared. the services of \V. J. Forsyth, an Eng The :first serious attempt to grow cin lishman who had worked with cinchona chona commercially in Guatemala seems in the Asiatic tropics. Under the terms to have been that of the Sarg family, of of hi contract, Mr. Forsyth went to which we have reliable details in the Ceylon and brouO'ht back eed with memoirs of Franz arg, "Deutschtum which nurseries were established in a in der Alta Verapaz", 1938. number of places. Since the ucciru Our chief interest in those early bras which were obtained by Richard plantings is to trace tbe origin of the Spruce on the slopes of Chim borazo in seeds employed, since it is from these Ecuador were at that time being culti seeds that many of the trees growing in vated extensively in Ceylon and India, the Republic have descended. Sarg it is reasonable to believe that much of tates de:finitely that the stock used by the For yth stock wa · of that strain, an bis family was obtained from Ceylon assumption borne out by the appearance through the good offices of Prince Niko ancl the alkaloid-pattern of many trees laus of Nassau, and tbat the year was now in Guatemala which originated in, 187 o or have descended from, the For yth in In thi same year the l\'linister of troductions. Agriculture, Manuel Herrera, addre sed Pilli presents some interesting :figures, a lengthy memorandum to President as of 1884, regarding the location and Justo Ru:fino Barrio , pointing out tbe extent of the Forsyth plantings. These advantages of cinchona cultivation and data are of value to us in connection urging that the government take steps with the history of the material with 152 ECONOMIC BOTANY which we are working today. Of par "History of the Cinchona Project of ticular importance is the planting at Merck and Co. Inc., and Experimental Finca El Porvenir, made under the Plantations Inc., 1934-1943", from clirection of President Justo Rufino which I quote the following paragraph: Barrios, who was the owner of the prop "In early 1932 Merck and Co. Inc. erty and who rightfully may be called considered the advi ability of develop the father of cinchona cultivation in ing Cinchona in the "\Vestern Ilemi Guatemala. This honor, however, should spbere, at the sugge tion of, and in co perhaps be shared with others-notably operation with, the State Department of the Sarg brothers of Coban, and Don the United States. It was deemed ex Manuel Herrera, Minister of .A.gricul pedient to build up supplies of cin ture. chona bark in the .A.mericas in order to .A.fter the death of Barrios the Re become independent of the Dutch Qui formet, cinchona culture entered a nine 1\Ionopoly. It was lo"'ical that period of decline due to several fac Merck and Co. Inc. sbould have been tors, sorne of which can with difficulty keenly interested in bringing cinchona be evaluated at this late day. Colom cultivation back to the .A.mericas, in view bia wa shipping large quantities of of the fact that thi. Company, through wild bark, much of it better in quality its predeces ors, had maintained an un than that being o-rown in Guatemala; broken interest in the extraction of qui Java was coming into production with nine from cinchona barks since 1822, its fine Ledgeriana bark ; prices were when Farr and Kunzi commenced the falling in world markets; and coffee operation of a quüune factory in Phila was King. delphia, two years subsequent to the isolation and identification of quinine The Beginnings of a N ew Era as a crystalline compound by the Throughout the 1890's and the first French chemists Pelletier and Caven three decades of the 1900's, cinchona ton" . cultivation in Guatemala was in the dol .A.fter a brief and unsuccessful at drums. Many of the trees which had tempt to establi h cinchona in tbe south been planted for sbade in coffee fincas ern United States, Guatemala was were destroyed. Experimental ship cho en as the ba e for experimental ments of bark which were occasionally work. Sorne of the arguments in favor made to tbe United States and Europe of this country were the following: (a) usually resulted in lo s-or at best no it is nearer the United States than the sati.

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