3-011-532 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Peruvian bark tree plantations in the Neilgherry Hills, India: Sir William Denison, Governor of Madras, planting the first tree in a new plantation, 1862. 'Mr. Clements Markham, of the India Office, was intrusted...with the duty of superintending all the necessary arrangements for the collection of cinchona plants and seeds in South America, and for their introduction into India...Mr. Markham...penetrated into the forests of Caravaya, in Southern Peru, which had never before been trodden by any European...The supply of bark from South America was every year becoming more and more precarious, owing to improvident and reckless felling of the trees. The introduction of the cinchona-trees into India had, therefore, become a matter of the greatest importance. Not only India, but the whole civilised world, will derive incalculable benefit from this undertaking...Our Engraving represents [Sir William Denison] in the act of planting the first plant in one of the new cinchona plantations, accompanied by...Mr. M'lvor, the Superintendent of Cinchona Plantations (in the foreground holding a spade). In the background is another thriving cinchona plantation...and to the right is a nursery of young cinchona plants'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.