294 
mother-liquor should not be thrown away, but should be continually 
worked up with fresh juice. 
"The method recently g given by 3 Mr. Alvan Millson for the recovery of 
caoutchouc from the “Abba” tree, is admirably adapted for the 
ve et of the juice of the Forsteronia floribunda. 
rubber from this plant is so remarkably good that no time should 
be lost in submitting samples — red on the spot. The rubber cannot 
be seriously deteriorated by any process likely to be used in its recovery. 
ere is n ~ seat but - the examination of the natural juice of a 
plant p in most cases, enable one to point out what epom, 
should be taken t o ensure the best result; still the fact must not be 
sight of that such an examination might lead one to suggest hen 
difficult of being carried o out. e surrounding circumstances, 
and Washed: caou choue, o 22 ounces or ordinary crude caoutchoue 
as generally met "with, bor ees 
A. About 21 ounces of this daot was recovered, the weight being 
that of the washed and drjed article. In colour and strength it ap- 
ches more nearly to the better descriptions of Para rubber. Mixed 
with sulphur or SEA it vulcanized perfectly, in being solid, firm, 
and strong. Itis a light colour when vulcanized. 
B. About 14 ode ‘of this produet was recovered when washed and 
dri was much darker in colour than sample marked A. This 
remark applies also to the washed product, but it is not nearly so tough 
as A, 
LXXIV.—SEEDLINGS OF SUGAR CANE AT 
BARBADOS. 
(Saccharum officinarum, L.) 
‘The sugar cane is one of the most valuable economic plants we 
It has been cultivated for so long a period that the ae 
— habitat LI the species according to De Candolle, i i unknown.* Ben 
in Flora ong Kong, p. 420, states that * We have no berum 
** record of any iol wild station of the common s sugar cane," Fur- 
~ ther than this, in com with many plants that ‘have been for a 
- long time under cultivat tion and réprodueed solely by means of buds 
and suckers, the sugar can rarely produces muture fruits that no 
one, as far as we are aware, has ever seen them. Certainly in the rich 
Herbarium at Kew there are no seed-bearing specimens. In botanical 
- works the subject is often referred to, but apparently only to restate the 
fact that botanists like MeFadyen in the West Indies and Roxburgh in 
India “have nev Z 
Schacht is one of the fi ers o has given a good analysis of 
the =. of the sugar cane including ^h pistil ; he also had not seen 
the ri 
In seti the problem how far the saccharine qualities of the 
sugar cane cou ld be improved on the same lines as those so success- 
fully adopted with regard to the beet it was lately pointed out in a 
e addressed to the Colonial Office that, owing to the posu of 
|— * Origin of Cultivated Plants (1884), p 
+ Hooker's Botanical Miscellany (1830), du I. p. 95, tab. 26, 
