PREFACE. Vll 



ligations of botanists have added hundreds of articles to 

 our list of commercial products. What is still in store for 

 us we know not, but we are certain that vast fields for 

 discovery are still untouched, and remain to reward the 

 scientific investigator. 



I was preparing to enter very fully into the commercial 

 statistics of the articles described, when the glaring discre- 

 pancies which met me in the different works professing to 

 give this kind of information, almost led me to abandon the 

 idea of giving any statistical details. The appearance of a 

 work by my friend Mr. Braithwaite Poole, upon the Statistics 

 of British Commerce, has however led to the removal in a 

 great measure of my difficulties in this particular, and it will 

 be seen that I have availed myself largely of his publica- 

 tion; besides this, I am indebted to him for other useful 

 information, which he has obtained for me through his ex- 

 tensive railway connections. 



The classification adopted in the following pages is simple, 

 being a mere division into groups, and the botanical in- 

 formation is slight; they are, however, sufficient to show, 



