Abstract
We are studying how cinchona, one of the most important medicinal plants, was introduced and cultivated in Japan. As part of this research, here we report on cinchona cultivation at the Koshun nettai syokubutu syokuikujo (Hengchun Tropical Plant Cultivation Farm; now the Hengchun Branch of the Taiwan Forestry Research Institute) in Taiwan, which was under Japanese colonial rule from 1895. The Koshun-nettaisyokubutusyokuikujo was established in 1901 by the Governor-General of Taiwan at Hengchun in southern Taiwan, as a cultivation facility for useful plants. The person who directly conducted the construction and operation of the facility was Yasusada Tashiro. For approximately ten years (1901-1910), he strived to construct the cultivation farm and grow plants of economic value. Among many plants of which cultivation attempts were made was cinchona. Tashiro was also the first person in Japan who attempted to cultivate cinchona (in 1882) and thus, his attempt to cultivate cinchona in Hengchun, Taiwan, was the second chalenge for him. With the cooperation of Motoo Higuchi, a staff with outstanding skills in cultivation, Tashiro began to see the prospects for cinchona domestication. However, Higuchi was suddenly fired from his job at the cultivation farm. In the aftermath, cinchona seedlings that they had cultivated up to that time gradually started to wither and subsequently, cinchona cultivation at the cultivation farm ended in failure. Tashiro was disappointed; nevertheless, the technical experience gained from cinchona cultivation at the cultivation farm was very valuable and proved to be greatly useful later in life.
