FIBRES OF JAMAICA. 335 
Mr. NATHANIEL WiLsON on the useful Vegetable Products, especially 
the Fibres, of JAMAICA. 
We have heard rumours, but we trust they are without foundation, 
of the want of Government support to the Botanic Garden in Jamaica ; 
and that Mr. N. Wilson, its active and very intelligent Superintendent, 
has left, or is on the point of leaving, the colony altogether. We 
have ourselves had occasion, in the great Paris Exhibition of the pre- 
sent year, to witness the necessity of some scientific knowledge, in the 
accurate determination of the plants which yield the various vegetable 
substances. The Jamaica collection there deposited, valuable as it is 
in extent, becomes tenfold more important from the correct nomencla- 
ture of the objects.. To say nothing of the noble collections and fine 
specimens of the Woods, ete., it contains a series of Fibres of the island 
which is more instructive than any other in the Exhibition, because of 
the great pains that have been taken by Mr. Wilson to give the scientific 
and vernacular names, rendering it quite clear what is the exact plant 
which produces such and such Fibre; while in other collections we find 
one and the same name (Pine-apple, Aloe, Manilla Hemp, etc.) attached 
to Fibres from totally different (and to several kinds of) plants. “Si 
nomina pereunt, perit et cognitio rerum.” Such names are worse than 
useless—they mislead. We believe the latest duties performed by Mr. 
Wilson in the island were to draw up a Report on the progress and - 
usefulness of the Botanic Garden of Bath, St. Thomas the Apostle, for P 
the past year, 1854, for the information of the Honourable the Board 
of Directors, and to prepare a full series of the Fibres, etc. for the 
Paris Exhibition. As these Fibres are described in the said Report, 
we are tempted to offer the following extracts.—Ep. 
By a continuous and extensive distribution of plants from this In- - 
stitution of late years, this Botanic Garden has from a comparative 
state of obscurity been brought into one of practical utility and national | 
importance, evidenced by the dissemination of thousands of plants, both $ 
useful and interesting, where such were never seen or heard of before. - 
Consequently the limits of this Garden have rendered it totally inadequate | : 
to meet the exigency of the present demand, or to do anything like justice - 
to the constantly-accumulating collection of plants, being only one and 
three-quarter acres in extent. The new plants have therefore to be dis- —— 
- posed without plan or arrangement, wherever a few feet of spare ground — 
