PEEFACE. 



Vll 



tigations of botanists have added hundreds of articles to 

 our hst of commercial products. What is still in store for 

 us we know not^ but we are certain that vast fields for 

 discovery are still untouched, and remain to reward the 

 scientific investigator. 



I was jjreparing to enter very fully into the commercial 

 statistics of the articles described, when the glaring discre- 

 pancies which met me in the different works professing to 

 give this kind of information, almost led me to abandon the 

 idea of giving any statistical details. The appearance of a 

 work by my friend Mr. Braithwaite Poole, upon the Statistics 

 of British Commerce, has however led to the removal in a 

 great measure of my difficulties in this particular, and it will 

 be seen that I have availed myself largely of his publica- 

 tion; besides this, I am indebted to him for other useful 

 information, which he has obtained for me through his ex- 

 tensive railway connections. 



The classification adopted in the following pages is simple, 

 being a mere division into groups, and the botanical in- 

 formation is slight; they are, however, sufficient to show. 



