318 
et seg. You will see that it is an exaggeration to say that. the 
quality has been enormously increased ; but it was so in a fairly 
large measure ; and this has ssi beet- -sugar making from a bad 
job into a prosperous industr 
m, &c. 
(Signed) 'H. L. DE VILMORIN. 
In this case eee was effected by taking advantage of 
seminal variation. The same method might be applied to the 
sugar-cane now that seedlings are obtainable with tolerable 
facility. But progress would necessarily be made slower than in 
the case of the sugar-beet. 
For this reason the method of chemical selection which has 
been pract tised in Louisiana seems both more practicable and more 
Po. 86-00). It is fully described in the Kew Bulletin for 1894 
pp. 86- 
The following report Ma the result of a preliminary report 
e last year in Barbados 
EXTRACT from letter from Mr. J. R. Bovell, Curator, Botanic 
Station, Dodd’s Reformatory, E to the Director, Royal 
Gardens, Kew, dated March 30th, 1897 
“When I was at Kew in 1894 you gaoa to me the desirability 
of trying to Er =x saccharine of the are ano by chemica 
n to Barbados at the end of 1894 it was 
up 
ined over the average amount “of available sugar in the canes 
Mein the first day. A second plot was planted with cuttings of 
the upper halves of those below the first day's average, and a 
third plot was at the same time planted in the usual way, i.e., with 
cuttings taken indiscriminately from ordinarily well-grown canes. 
These plots were jsi two weeks ago, and the results were very 
satisfactory. The es grown from the cuttings taken from the 
in sucrose the poorest juice, and those Peo in the usual way 
coming about mid-way between the other two 
DLXXIX.—FOREST PRODUCTS OF SIERRA LEONE. 
The foliowing interesting account of the forest products of 
Sierra Leone and their possible rms is taken from 
the U.S. Consular Reports for November, 1896 (pp. 442-444). 
It is an extract from an address made by the Governor of Sierra 
Leone (now Sir Frederic Cardew, K.C.M.G.) to the Legislative 
Council of Sierra Leone, on the 21st April, 1896. 
eaim eb ent of the forests described have been referred to in 
the by Mr. Scott-Elliot, already noticed in the Kew 
Bulletin 1893, p 167-169) :— 
There are large tracts of forests with abundance of rubber and 
valuable timber awaiting exportation, They have been in no 
