ee ee Se ey 

3 
and servants. The cause of this variation of colour is manifold; the 
Teff that grows on light ground havi ng a moderate degree of moisture, 
flour, by bruising or breaking it in a stone mill. This is repeate 
several times with great care, in the finest a of bread, which is found 
in the houses of all people of rank or substa 
The fruit, or seed, is oblong, ae is not so large as the head of the 
smallest pin; yet it is very prolific, and produces these ‘pak in such 
quantity as to yield a very abundant crop in the quantity of me 

3. 
Royat Garpens, Kew, to Forrran OFFICE. 
SIR, Royal Gardens, ob 23rd June 1886. 
I am directed by Mr. Thiselton Dyer to bring under the notice 
of Lord Rosebery the desirability of obtaining seed of a valuable cereal 
commonly sown all over Abyssinia, where it seems to thrive e equally on 
every sort of ground and from which is made the bread ordinarily used 
un 
2. it is D locally Tef, Ttheff, or Thaff, and known to botanists 
as Eragrostis abyssinica. 
3. It appears to be an payaan ee cereal cultivated at 
high elevations, from 6,000 feet to 7,000 feet above the level of the 
sea, of which ders are several var id depending on size and coloura- 
tion. 
4. No specimens of this grain are in the Museums of Economic 
Botany at Kew, and practically it appears to be unknown outside the 
confines of Uppe r Egypt and Abyssinia. eee interesting account, 
i l 
Dyer that the grain might be ver navan tagicuay introduced to certain 
hill stations in “India, to elevated portions of our`colonial empire, and, 
Dn to all places where maize and wheat cannot be successfully 
cult 
7. Mr. 'Fhiselton Dyer would, under these circumstances, esteem it a 
favour if you will be good enough to lay this letter befcre Lord 
Rosebery, and ask that the Vice-Consul at Berbera be instructed to 
endeavour to procure a bushel or so of seed of Teff and forward it here 
y first convenient opportunity. 
I have, &c., 
Sir Villiers Lister, K.C.M.G., (Signed) D. Morris. 
Foreign Office. 

A 50051. : 2 
