212 FORESTRY OF WEST AFRICA. 



also ready for the home, care, growth and subsequent 

 distribution of seedlings, and young plants or trees 

 might in the first instance issue from the imaginary 

 (but let us hope it will prove a reality) botanic 

 station, garden or allied institution I later advocate 

 for West Africa. 



I cannot find a more fitting place for the insertion 

 of the noble sentiments of Mr. Mathew Foster, ex- 

 pressed some forty years ago : — 



"If I am blessed with health and life for a few 

 years longer, I do not despair of increasing the 

 number and value of our African imports. It is the 

 surest method of improving Africa and benefiting the 

 mother country, and it becomes a British merchant 

 to carry his views sometimes beyond the boundary of 

 sordid gain." 



From the Gold Coast Colony no specimens of the 

 wood of that part has reached commercially, to any 

 purpose, England, if any other country. Let us hope 

 there is a good time coming, for trees capable of 

 affording good, useful and serviceable timber abound 

 there, as on most parts of that coast line : there, how- 

 ever, transport to the sea offers, with ' one or two 

 exceptions, a difficulty at present insurmountable. 



I may with convenience here insert the names of 

 specimens contributed from behind Accra by me to 

 Kew in 1882-83 :— 



Capparis erythrocarpa, Isert. 

 Hibiscus microphyllus, L. 



