PREFACE. 



IN the volumes, issued by the Victorian Acclimation- Society from 

 1871 to 1878, five contributions have appeared concerning such 

 industrial plants, as are available for culture in extra-tropical 

 countries or in high mountain-regions within the tropics. These 

 writings were mainly offered with a view of promoting the intro- 

 duction and diffusion of the very many kinds of utilitarian plants, 

 which may be extensively reared in the forests, fields, pastures or 

 gardens of temperate geographic latitudes. But the work thus 

 originated became accessible merely to the members of the Society, 

 while frequent calls arose for these or some similar data, not only 

 throughout the Australian communities, but also abroad. The whole 

 was therefore re-arranged and largely supplemented, first for re-issue 

 in Victoria and later also for publication in India, there under the 

 auspices of the Central Government at Calcutta. Subsequently the 

 work was likewise honored by being reprinted, with numerous addi- 

 tions, for the use of New South Wales ; and at nearly the same time 

 it went through a German translation, by Dr. Goeze, in Herr Th. 

 Fischer's publishing establishment of Cassel. In 1884 it appeared 

 revised and still further augmented, more particularly for North- 

 American use, through the generous interest of one of the most 

 enterprising scientific publishers in the United States, Mr. George 

 Davis of Detroit. Three Victorian editions having become exhausted, 

 the present one is offered now, still further enlarged by such notes, 

 as could be added very recently. As stated in the preface to the 

 original essays, they did not claim completeness, either as a specific 

 index to or as a series of notes on the respective rural or technologic 

 applicability of the plants enumerated. But what these writings 

 may perhaps aspire to, is to bring together some condensed data in 

 popular language on all the principal economic plants, hitherto known 

 to prosper beyond the equinoctial zone. Information of this kind is 

 widely scattered and often only accessible through voluminous and 

 costly works in various languages ; furthermore, such volumes may 



