Markham returned briefly to England before sailing to India, to select suitable sites for cinchona plantations there and in Burma (now Myanmar) and Ceylon. Although many of the Indian plantations failed to flourish and were soon destroyed by insects, others survived, and were augmented by species obtained by Spruce which were more suited to Indian conditions. Twenty years after the first plantations the annual cinchona bark crop from India was estimated at . For his work in introducing cinchona to India, Markham received a grant of £3,000 (over £200,000 in 2008 terms) from the British Government.