The idea of introducing cinchona to India was first made in 1813, by W. Ainslie, and, years later, in 1839, John Forbes Royle suggested that it could be tried in the Nilgiris. The Indian government was spending £7000 pounds a year around 1852 when Royle made a proposal to introduce cinchona to India. By coincidence Markham was a civil servant in the India Office, and in 1859 he made proposals to his employers for a scheme for collecting cinchona trees from the Peruvian and Bolivian Andes, and transplanting them to selected sites in India. Cinchona bark, a source of quinine, was the first known treatment for malaria and other tropical diseases. These plans were approved and Markham was placed in charge of the operation.