146 S'OEES* dtJL^UEii ANO 



portation of Figs into Britain alone, from countries in 

 climate aliEe 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 to a 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 (Dionaea 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 grown and multiplied in 

 similar localities, and the hardier of grand Epiphytes 

 among the orchids, such as the subalpine Oncidium 

 Warczewickyi, 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 live 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- 



