6 EXPLOITATION OF PLANTS 
proposal is likely to meet with general approval, and it 
is to be hoped it may bear fruit. 
The first definite step in the botanical survey of the 
empire was taken sixty years ago at the instance of Sir 
William Hooker, the then Director of Kew. Accord- 
ing to the plan arranged, twelve floras corresponding 
to the various possessions and colonies were to be 
worked out at Kew by the staff in what leisure time 
was available. 
Though subject to much interruption, the greater 
part of this scheme has been completed, two of the series 
of projected floras alone awaiting completion. Canada, 
for some reason, was not included, but the omission is 
likely to be repaired by local effort. 
“The materials on which these floras have been based 
are collections made by occasional travellers, officers 
accompanying boundary commissions, missionaries, and 
medical men attached to punitive expeditions. The 
whole thing has been characteristically haphazard, and 
it does great credit to the writers of the floras, largely 
men fully occupied with administrative and routine 
duties, that the enterprise should have been as successful 
as it undoubtedly has been. 
A flora, of course, is a mere starting-point, a bare 
inventory of the plants of the area dealt with, and much 
“remains to be done. Detailed physical descriptions of 
the countries are now required, giving a picture of their 
resources, stating to what extent, if at all, these are at 
present utilised, the existing lines of communication, 
available labour, and everything pertaining to the 
development of their resources. 
Meanwhile in most of the British possessions botanic 
