COMMERCIAL BOTANY OF THE 

 NliNETEENTH CENTUET. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Is considering this subject, the whole history of Economic 

 Botany may be said to be placed under review, for it is 

 quite within the last thirty years that anything like real or 

 general attention has been directed to the subject. 



It is true that in the present century no single plant 

 has been introduced either to commerce or for home cultiva- 

 tion of such widespread importance as the tobacco and 

 potato plants, nevertheless what has been accomplished in a 

 comparatively few years in the cultivation of the cinchonas 

 and the various caoutchouc-producing plants in various 

 parts of the world will bear favourable comparison with 

 anything done in a similar direction in previous centuries, 

 and judging from the present rate of scientific progress the 

 importance of these plants alone in future years may, and 

 probably wUl, equal those of the tobacco and potato. 



It would be impossible to form any correct idea of what 

 has been attained in the knowledge of plants, useful or 

 otherwise, without referring to the results of the principal 

 expeditions which have left our shores for different parts of 

 the world during the present century, such, for instance, as 

 Ross's Antarctic Expedition, which resulted in " The 

 Botany of the Antarctic Voyage of H.M. Ships Erebus 

 and Terror, in the years 1839 to 1843," by Dr. (now Sir) 

 B 



