6 
the common mouth, and the grades are not kept separately, 
making a class of rubber which is very variable, and therefore 
disliked by manufacturers. 
There is, on the whole, a growing tendency toward the use of 
Africans, and in this is a true check on the price of Para. In 
time drawn into internal enterprises, In Europe the stocks of 
Africans are always larger than of Para, and a steady growth is 
very noticeable. 
IL—FOREST PRODUCTS OF SIERRA LEONE. 
[K.B., 1897, pp. 318-320.] 
The following interesting account of the forest products of 
Sierra Leone and their possible development is taken from 
the U.S. Consular Reports for November, 1896 (pp. 442-444). 
It is an extract from an address made by the Governor of Sierra 
Leone (now Sir Frederic Cardew, K.C M.G.) to the Legislative 
Some portions of the forests described have been referred to in 
the report made by Mr. Scott-Elliot, already noticed in the Kew 
Bulletin (1893, pp. 167-169) .— 
The 
valuable timber awaiting exportation. They have been in no 
sense explored, and they only require intelligent and systematic 
methods for gathering the rubber to yield their wealth to the 
first comer who has the necessary enterprise. 
For instance, the forest to which I have already referred as 
lying between Makali and Kruto may be roughly estimated to 
on the west and the Bagwe on the east, and an east and west line 
drawn through Kruto in the north, and a similar line drawn 
through Makali in the south. 
This area comprises portions of the Kuniki and Koranko 
districts, and the extent of forest land within it may, on the most 
moderate caleulation, be computed at about 600 square miles. 
Along a great portion of the route taken by my party the forest 
is of some eight to ten years’ growth, but in many parts of the 
it is invariably cut up into small pieces of about 6 inches in 
length, and thus completely destroyed. The * kewatia," i.e., the 
rubber tree, appears to grow rapidly, and in eight or ten years to 
