51 
MIU AK x garden has £o sell in order to live, We have therefore 
to demand money for exaetly those things which are raised for 
ance, and know nothing of the perpetual fight against insolvency which 
we share with the small shop-keeper. 
“ The demand for information on points of culture and introduction of 
new experimental plants is incessant. A few of these inquiries have 
reached us through the Government, and have been dealt with in quasi- 
official reports, but the mass of them come in the ordinary correspondence 
of the garden, and absorb a great amount of time without any return. 
Inquirers are often inconsiderate. Sometimes several letters involving 
research are required, our advice is taken, and is carried out at a rival 
seed store. We have not the right of franking such correspondence, 
and almost invariably have to pay the postage for our pains. It is a 
pity that the bulk of the inquiries shows a tendency to try tropical d 
sub-tropical cultures for which the climatic conditions of the Ca: 
prohibitive, and the available labour too high priced. Cacao, MUR TODE, 
ginger , opium, , tea, Furcrea fibre, Phormium and rice ; upon 
e like speculation has been rife. I wish there were the 
same curiosity about ascertaining the special fitness of this or that 
variety of wheat, barley, or mai " for this or that soil, or about 
originating improved strains of potato from cn meas Nae in 
fact, which will result in produce — than in samples. Occasionally 
important matters have turned up in course of corre endisse. or 
example, the occurrence of the destructive Cuscuta T'rifolii, Bab., or 
* Dodder,’ among colonial crops of Lucerne has been sign This 
mischief is, no doubt, a result of the importation of cheap "tinsifted seed, 
Whether the measures earnestly pressed upon the cultivators will be 
ied as to the extirpation of the pest remains to seen. In view 
of the value of Lucerne to the ostrieh-farming industry, and the 
swift a i of the crop by the parasite, should it become Mata, 
I am of opinion that a stringent Act for the extirpation of amie is 
more needed than that against the Xanthium spinosum. In case of the 
latter, legislation perhaps sharing the gd blindness of Quse, 
i i iled to 
denounce the smaller yet more mischievous Echinospermum, or * earrot 
seed ’ of the farmers, the sronimehan apk of Page borne b 
for its appearance. Being poe from Europe i in ER seed, it 
may appear sporadically in any part of the Colony." 
At the present Opes Cape Colony is the only important British 
ion which does not possess a fully equipped Botanical Institution. 
It is true it SS Fi fine colonial herbarium under the compétent 
charge of Professor MacOwan and an agricultural department which he 
efficiently advises on botanical subjects. But beyond this it has no 
central authority dealing with the practical aspects of the science of 
botany, and no gardens under technical control where careful experi- 
A 2 
