84 ON TAMANU KESIN AND OIL 



Italy has the great advantage of possessing the conditions to give the 

 quickest supply at the present moment. If all these favourable circum- 

 stances he duly taken advantage of, Italy might he able to furnish at 

 least 100,000 hales of cotton next year to the English market, and a 

 million of hales within a few years time. 



But what steps are to be taken in order to establish this production 

 on a proper footing ? 



1st. The Italian Government should expedite, to the utmost degree, 

 the construction of the railways which pass through the cotton regions, 

 and especially the line along the Adriatic and Ionian seas. 



2nd. Private companies shoidd rent or purchase land in those pro- 

 vinces for growing cotton. 



3rd. One or more companies should be formed for drainage, irriga- 

 tion, and general land improvement, similar to those in existence in this 

 country. 



When once the land is improved, there is no doubt that cotton culti- 

 vation would be established there in preference to all others for the 

 large return it would yield. 



It is questionable whether these last two objects might not he 

 embraced by the same Company. 



While it is the interest of Italy to develop so great a source of 

 national wealth, it is no less that of England to create this new field of 

 cotton supply. 



Italian capital is so taken up in an endless variety of both public 

 and private undertakings, that it could not suffice for immediately 

 carrying out this cutivation on a large scale ; it is, therefore, extremely 

 desirable that Italian and Foreign capital and energy should be 

 combined, in order to give an instantaneous impulse to so important 

 an enterprise as the establishment of an extensive European cotton 

 field. 



ON TAMANU RESIN AND OIL FEOM THE SOCIETY ISLANDS. 



BY G. CUZENT. 



The Calophyllum Inoplv/Uum of Linnseus, which bears in Tahiti the 

 names of Ati and Tamanu, belongs to the Guttifera family of Jussieu. 



Resin of Tamanu. — In the crevices of the bark of this tree is found 

 a green, heavy resin, which remains fluid and sticky for a long time, 

 and subsequently becomes dry and solid. It is then brittle, and 

 breaks like glass, and is aromatic. This resin must not be confounded 

 with those obtained from Icica Tacamacha, heptaphylal Guyanensis and 

 altisslma, which are known in the ' Pharmacopseia ' under the name of 

 Tacamahaca. In fact, its physical characteristics are not the same ; the 

 colours of reddish-yellow, black and yellow, a dull yellowish green, 



