s ‘ 
792. memoirs of Dr James Anderson. 5 
chu, and choui-la-chu, on which it is necefsary to place 
the insects with care, afford them proper nourifhment. 
I thought it not improper to mention this singular pro- 
duction, as it promises to convert oil into the consistence 
of wax, and serve other useful purposes. 
I have the honour to transmit the copy of a letter of 
instructions to Dr Berry, for the farther ordering the 
plantation at the nopalry. I am favoured with your letter 
of the 18th instant, and have no doubt, with such aisis- 
tance, and foreign aid, of establifhing a collection of valu- 
able plants, that may be extended to the management of 
the natives in the honourable company’s pofsefsions, with 
public advantage. Iam, &, 
From the same to the same. 
Hon. sig AND SIRS, Dee. 11. 1789. 
Your ready acquiefcence to the importation of valuable 
plants will enable me to derive advantage from the resear- 
ches of the Asiatic Society, by the hopes I entertain that 
you will solicit the supreme board for plants of the mah- 
wah tree, so certainly supplying food in hot countries, as 
described by lieutenant Charles Hamilton,a member of that 
Society. 
In this country the materta medica extends to the 
bark of every tree, and is the principal cause of our want 
of timber, almost every tree being stripped ofits bark at an 
early period, by the natives, either for themselves, or on 
purpose to cure the diseases of cattle; and it must be al- 
lowed that many of them are useful in this view, such as 
the melias, some mimosas, the genus ficus, and cafsia;_per- 
haps the custom of livingin clay houses, has prevented them 
seeing much disadvantage in the want of timber: Thatch, 
in most common use, of andropogon nardus, is light and 
