140 



methods are employed, it is stated that in the year 1890 the produc- 

 tion amounted to about 2,500,000 pounds. The total production for 

 18 exceeded 3,500,000 pounds. Cotton is indigenous in Nicaragua, 

 and the finest quality can be produced in vast quantities. Instead of 

 being an annual plant, as in the United States, the cotton plant is 

 perennial in Nicaragua, and growing much larger, yields double the 

 quantity that it does in the most favoured locality in the United 

 States. Maize, rice, and tobacco are abundantly grown. Indigo and 

 cochineal were formerly produced in large quantities, but as they have 

 been superseded by the introduction of mineral dyes, the cultivation 

 of these articles has almost entirely ceased. The yuca, the yam, (name), 

 and the sweet potato are the principal farinaceous roots that are ex- 

 tensively cultivated. The yuca is not only useful for food, but valua- 

 ble from an industrial point of view, as the starch it yields could 

 readily be made an extensive article of commerce. The breadfruit 

 grows to perfection in Nicaragua. The tree consists of a massive 

 trunk with dark green leaves, and it begins to bear about three years 

 after planting. It yields two crops in the year, one lasting through 

 March and April, and the other from August to October. Each fruit 

 weighs from six to ten pounds, and is said to have a delicious taste when 

 fried or boiled. The cocoanut tree is abundant, and on the Caribbean 

 coast it is an important article of commerce, although no efforts have 

 been made to utilise the fibre of the husk. Frijoles, the brown beans 

 that form such a prominent article of diet throughout Spanish America, 

 are produced abundantly in all parts of the Eepublic, while all other 

 tropical fruits such as oranges, lemons, limes, citrons, pineapples, 

 guavas, mangoes, &c, grow in great profusion. The vegetables of the 

 temperate zone grow luxuriously in the more elevated districts. 



FORESTRY. 



The Presidential Address in the section of Biology at the 

 British Association Meeting in Oxford, August, 1894, by 

 Dr. I. Bayley Balfour, Regius Professor of Botany in the 

 University of Edinburgh.* 

 Forestry, is a branch of applied science to which, in the British 



Islands, but little attention has been given by any class of the com- 



* This subject is of the greatest importance in Jamaica on those general prin- 

 ciples so admirably summarised in the sixth paragraph. But the seventh para- 

 graph is not applicable to a country like Jamaica, where there are large forest 

 areas, and wh ere 40 inches of rain may fall in a few days instead of being spread 

 over the greater part of a year. 



While these general principles have been brought forward very many times in 

 the Annual Reports and the Bulletins of this Department for many years, and in 

 the special Report on the Forest of Jamaica by an Indian Forester, Mr. Hooper, — 

 it has not been neglected to point out that a period of general " timber famine" is 

 fast approaching, and that there is therefore a duty, which cannot be avoided, in- 

 cumbent on the present generation to commence planting to provide against that 

 contingency. Prof. Balfour puts this view of the subject clearly and forcibly in 

 paragraphs 9, 10, and 11. 



Although much of this Address bears reference only to the British Isles, there 

 are nevertheless so many suggestions scattered through it that are valuable also 

 to owners of land in Jamaica, that it seemed better to give the whole in full, than 

 merely to make a few extracts. 



The Government is already helping in this important subject by the distribu- 

 tion through the Botanical Gardens of young seedling trees at the cost only of 

 packing and carriage. — [Editor]. 



