te 
19 
emigrants for the names of such books as will enable them to 
—— that the want of them isa reat obstacle to the develop- 
nt of the productive resources “of the Colonies, and that they are 
peat for the purpose of providing a fixed nomenclature 
for their plants, without which it is impossible for himself and 
the Colonists to carry on a correspondence upon these and kindred 
subjects. 
Again, as regards the Colonies themselves :—as these increase in 
onan, and wealth, there arises a ERY class of sewed? Boni of 
a 
reasoning faculties. Nor are rane Gets Sait of the losses 
f the pro 
proportion of those which were sent to the Great tac eel 
in 1851, and to that in Paris, in 1855, were rendered almost value- 
less by the absence of any means of procuring reliable iatoetanttont 
regarding them, or of giving them ot by which they could be 
gain known. In the case of the timbers especially, the same 
hame is applied to several trees in a colony, and to others in 
other colonies; and these names being often purely ar arbitrary 
(applied by memory, or originating in a bree or in an erroneous 
idea of the tree to which they are given), are soon lost sight of, and 
often wholly forgotten. Meanwhile the manufacturer or merchant 
in England, or the colonist abroad, vainly asks for the wood he 
Saw in the Exhi bitlonm or reads of in their records ; ae lastly, in 
the Exhibition of 1862 (though there was a marked improvement 
in this respect), we met with many of these same woods under yet 
other names, as misleading as the old ones. 
These representations having been laid before the Secretary of 
State for the Colonies, together with a despatch from Sir William 
Pititepn (then Governor-in-Chief of Australia), Pig goign the 
publication on the part of the Home Government 0 mplete 
eo history of the Australian, and indeed of all aed Caleoice 
his Grace the Duke of Newcastle instructed Sir William Hooker 
to cay ‘up a plan for the publication of Colonial Floras in an 
rm and in t 
expensive m he English language, statin, e 
mber and extent of volumes required, the sembred outlay ie 
aethorshi , the amount of guaranteed sale that would induce 
publisher to undertake nce a and the erokonie selling price 
of the volumes to the pu 
After a very careful emakeration of the subject, and con- 
sultation with several eminent botanists and many publishers, it 
was resolved recommend :— 
1. That the series ve psec Floras should consist of about 
twelve separate and independent spare ceire: eae 
plants of as many Galenies or groups of Colonies. 
