59i 



2. B limbing Preserve. 5 days. 

 (So Blimbings. 

 4 catties sugar. 

 2 young cocoanuts. 

 \ lb. sugar-candy-: 

 Rub the fruit gently in salt till quite soft, being very careful not 

 to break the skins. 



Drop the fruit in basin of cold water. 



Wash and squeeze about 10 times, each time in fresh water 

 ( This is to remove acid, and salt.) 



Leave the fruit soaking in cold water while the sugar is boiling. 



Add \ lb. of sugar-candy to boiling sugar. 



Xow boil in another saucepan, the cocoanut water. 



When this is boiling, drop the blimbings into it, and let them boil 

 for a few minutes. 



Take the fruit out, and put them in a bowl of cold water, squeeze 

 them, and now drop them into the boiling sugar for a few minutes, 

 when remove and place in an empty bow l. 



Pour the boiling sugar into a separate bowl, and when both the 

 fruit and syrup are cold, drop the fruit carefully into the cold syrup 

 and leave till next day. 



Boil the sugar separately again 3 or 4 days successively, soaking 

 the fruit in the cold syrup each time for 24 hours, before repeating 

 the process. 



NOTE. — The Blimbing is a very acid fruit and very juicy. Hence 

 the long process. When completed, the fruit should be quite trans- 

 parent, the seeds perfectly visible through the skin. The syrup is 

 delicious, and can be eaten separately like honey. The fruit should 

 not be picked too young. 



L. E. BLAND. 



FUNTUMIA ELASTICA. 



The following notes on the Lagos silk rubber from the Annual 

 Report of the Botanic Gardens of the Gold Coast at Akuri are of 

 interest : — 



a Seventy-five more plants were added to the plantation of these 

 trees in the Gardens. Those planted last year have made satis- 

 factory progress despite the repeated attacks of the small larvae of 

 a moth which infested the plants in hundreds eating their young 

 h aves and branches. These pests have now been exterminated 

 by repeated applications of lime and ashes and sprayings of Bor- 

 deaux mixture have ridded the plants of a Fungus Pest "Meliola." 

 One of the trees planted out in the Gardens in 1897, NVas tapped 

 this year as an experiment to test the amount of rubber it was 

 capable of producing at this age. The tree operated on had grown 

 26 feet with a trunk of 1 foot 7 inches in circumference at 3 feet 

 from the ground and was about 2 years old when planted. After 

 the moisture from the latex obtained by this experiment had been 



