280 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 



addressed by H.M. Consul, H. W 

 dated 



British Consulate, Helsingfors, 16th June, 1857. 



My Lord, — The reports which from time to time have found their 

 way into our public journals, with regard to the scarcity of food in the 

 northern provinces of Finland, have not been exaggerated, and in the 

 early part of the spring of this year the distress was so great that the 

 peasantry were forced to live on bread made of bark, and several cases 

 of death by starvation took place. 



- The Imperial Government has lately sent three students from the 

 University of Helsingfors to teach the inhabitants how to bake bread 

 from Iceland Moss (LicJien Islandicus) and Reindeer Moss (Lichen 

 rangiferinus), mixed with Rye, samples of which I have taken the 

 liberty to forward on to your Lordship, under care of the Legation at 

 Stockholm, as they may probably prove of interest. 



Subscriptions took place very extensively, not only in Russia and 

 Finland, for the relief of the poor, but also very largely in Sweden and 

 England, so that for the moment the requirements have heen supplied ; 

 but the authorities look with considerable anxiety to the result of this 

 harvest, as up to this time the appearances are not of the most pro- 

 mising description, and should they fail, the result will be most dis- 

 tressing, and the inhabitants inevitably exposed to greater misery than 

 what they experienced last winter. 



I have, etc., 

 (Signed) H. Woodfall Crowe, Consul. 



Note on the Cultivation qf the Guinea-grass (Panicum frumentaccum), 

 in Malta; communicated by Governor Reid to Mr. Secretary 

 Labouchere, of the Colonial Office, 



From inquiries which I made, on first coming to Malta, I was as- 

 sured that the Guinea-grass was unknown here ; I therefore procured 



a box of plants from Barbadoes, five roots of which only arrived here 

 alive. 



These five roots were soon multiplied to many thousand plants, and 

 1 have had the pleasure of introducing it into the island of Sardinia, 

 Mic province of Tripoli, into Corfu, and different parts of Greece. Its 



