110 “ FOREST CULTURE AND 
portation of Figs into Britain alone, from countries in 
climate alike to large tracts of Victoria, has been of 
late years about one thousand tons annually. What 
the Fig-tree has effected for rainless tracts of Egypt 
is now on historic record. 
I have spoken of horticultural industries as not al- 
together foreign to this institution—indeed, as repre- 
senting a rising branch of commerce. Were I to en- 
ter on details of this subject the pages of this address 
might swell toa volume. But this I would mention, 
that in our young country the manifold facilities for 
rearing exotic plants in specially selected and adapted 
localities could only as yet receive imperfect consid- 
eration. We have, however, ample opportunities of 
selecting genial spots for the growth of such singular 
curiosities as the Flytrap plant (Dionzea Muscipula), 
and the Pitcher-plants (Sarracenias) of the bogs and 
swamps of the pine barrens and savannahs of Caroli- 
na, if we proceed to moory portions of our springy 
forest land. There is no telling, too, whether the 
Pitcher-plants of Khasya and China (species of Ne- 
penthes) could not readily be grownand multiplied in 
similar localities, and the hardier of grand Epiphytes 
among the orchids, such as the subalpine Oncidium 
Warezewickyi, of Central America, which might. 
readily be reared in our glens by horticultural enter- 
prise, together with all the hardier Palms which mod- 
ern taste has so well adopted for the,ready decoration 
of dwelling-rooms. 
Such plants as the Beaucarnea recurvata of Mexico, . 
with its five thousand flowers in a single panicle, and 
the hardier Vellozias, from the bare mountain regions 
of Brazil, would endure our open air; while the in- 
