392 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



cane, the Chinese orange, rice, tlie dioscorea sativa or tropical 

 yam, and other products of the district which Canton represents^ 

 have long since been acclimated to congenial regions in other por- 

 tions of the globe. It was not however, until commercial treaties 

 were made with China, opening her more northern ports, that we 

 were enabled to become conversant with the natural productions 

 of those portions of that Empire which, there extend as far toward 

 the north, as tlie State of Maine, in our own country. 



The importance of such knowledge acquired, and yet to be 

 acquired, has never been properly estimated. There exists among 

 us a prejudiced inclination for continually resorting to Europe for 

 precedents, and this is even persisted in on points in which we 

 are in fact far in advance of that continent. How much more 

 rational, so far as natural productions are concerned, to look to a 

 country whose agricultural and horticultural advancement was a 

 source of amazement to Lord Macartney's embassy in 1795 — a 

 country where a mighty development in these pursuits, as well as 

 in other departments of the useful and fine arts, had been attained 

 while Europe was yet in a state of utter debasement and barbarism. 

 It was not until the years '48 and '49, that foreign consuls were 

 admitted into the ports of Middle and Northern China. In the 

 year '50, we find the French government, which is always more 

 regardful than any other European nation of its agricultural inter- 

 ests, introducing the productions of those regions, and submitting 

 them to the experiments and tests of her appointed professors in 

 the grounds of her national horticultural institutions. Among 

 the articles so introduced was the Cliinese northern sugar cane, 

 (not a s'pecies^ but a distimt genus from that of Canton;) and five 

 varieties of the Northorn yam or dioscorea, a totally distinct spe- 

 cies from that cultivated at Canton. These estimable northern 

 plants we had never previously obtained at Canton, because Can- 

 ton, situated within the tropics had its more congenial tropical 

 sugar cane, and tropical yam. The question has been mooted, 

 "Why have not the Northern Chinese sugarcane, and the Northern 

 Chinese yam or potato, been previously introduced to our country? 

 This question we think we have now answered, and when it is 

 further considered that it was not until seven or eight years ago 

 that the potato malady caused us to think seriously of a substitute 

 for it, and a still less period since the Northern ports of China 

 became fully accessible to us, the whole of this cavilling amounts 

 simply to this, that we did not seek a substitute before one was 

 wanted, and that we did not seek for such a substitute in localities 

 which we were not permitted to enter. 



