632 IflE TKOPICAL AGRlCULTtJMST. [Marck 1, 1900 
cousiderable, but as yet, little has been done to 
develop them. Only a comparatively smull part of 
the state is nader the inflaenoe of civilization ; com- 
merce 13 in its infancy, and the few industries re- 
presented in the state' (16 mate milla, 7 small brew- 
eries, 3 foundries, 12 barrel factories, some little 
80iip-m«kinfi; shops, a few tanneries, and a furniture 
factory in Curityba) are all in a very primitive con- 
dition. The only exception is a large match factory 
in Curityba, which is well equipped ind does a very 
profitable business. 
Although the soil on the highlands is fertile, con- 
taining excellent grazing land, attd the climate very 
favorable,, the animal industry — cattle, hog, and sheep 
raising — is very far frona what it caught to be. For 
want of systematic care and regeneration, the 
cattle are degenerating and the pastures are neelecled. 
During my travels through the interior of Parana, 
I found, even in districts with large herds of cattle, 
milk or fresh butter a rare luxury. They would 
rather go without milk than trouble themselves to 
milk the cows. 
Agriculture and horticulture are in the same state 
of inertness, suffering from want of capital, deficient 
means of transportation, bad roadu, and scarcity of 
help. 
A very laudable effort to create a new industry, 
not only in the state of Parana, but throughout 
Southern Brazil, has been made by a t<.a:bci, Mr. 
Bmil Scheuk, of Ourityba, w!:o is woikinu liardand 
successfully to establish rational bee culture. He 
travels, lectures, and publishes a paper to propagate 
this work, for which there is an excellent field through- 
out sonthern Brazil. I have induced Mr. Schenk to 
introduce American hives, implements, and machinery 
appertaining to apiculture. They have given good 
satisfaction and will undoubtedly, in the course of 
time, help to secure numerous orders for the special- 
ists (in Ohio) from whom they were boHght. Mr. 
Schenk deserves the fullest encouragement for his 
intelligent and public-spirited devotion to this good 
cause. 
Commercially and industrially, there is no trace of 
American influence in the etate of Parana ; it is 
therefore doubly gratifying that American intel- 
lectuality is represented, highly and ably repre- 
sented, in another direction— popular education. 
This report would be incomplete if it did not 
mention the splendid service rendered to the cause 
of humanity, Americanism, and good education by 
the two ladies who conduct the Presbyterian mission 
school in Ourityba — Miss Mary P. Dascomb and Miss 
Elmira Kuhl. For over a quarter of a century they 
have devoted their high qualities of heart and mind 
to the mission work in Brazil, and came pioneering 
to Curityba over ten years ago. Their school now 
contains three hundred pupils of all nationalities and 
is prosperous and snccessful beyond anticipation. 
EuGENB Sek»br. 
Consul-General at Rio de Janeiro. Washington, 
October 17, 1899. 
MOTH ESSENCE. 
/According to the Neiieste Erfindungen mid Erfah- 
ruwjen, the following makes a splendid moth pre- 
Tenter : — 
Take of Spanish pepper 100 parts 
Turpentine oil ... ... 50 ,, 
Camphor 25 ,, 
Clove oil 10 ,, 
Alcohol, 96 p«r cent ... 900 ,. 
Cut the Sp'-nitih pepper into little bits, and pour oyer 
tbtm the liloobol and oil of turpentine. Let stand 
tv/o or three days, than decant and press out. To the 
liquid thus obtained add the camphor and clove oil ; 
Ifcly Htand a few days, then filter and fill into suitable 
bottles. To nsc, imbibe bits of bibulous paper in 
the liquid, and put them in the folds of clothing to be 
protected.— J>rv:^g, 
KEW'S FAMOUS GARDENS. 
It is almost impossible to imagine a pleasanter 
retreat on a hot summer day than the Botanic 
Gardens at Kew. From the time that Sir William 
Hooker became Curator of the Gardens they have 
flourished exceedinpcly. Sir William, who died 
in 1863, Mas succeeded bv his son, Sir Joseph 
Hooker ; the present Director is Mr. Thiselton- 
Dyer, c.m.g., f.b.s. 
There is nothing quite like Kew in all the 
wide world. It forms the botanical centre of 
the British Empire with its fifty or sixty 
Governments. There i,s only one British 
Empire, and there is onlj' "one such insti- 
tution as Kew Gardens— nothing quite like it 
anywhere. It is not merely that the Gardens are 
very large and exceedingly beautiful, though in 
both these respects Englishmen may well be 
prou'^ of them. They have a total area of nearly 
250 acres, a staff of nearly 200 hands— to say no- 
thing of a good many first-rate hands among them 
—somewhere about three or four acres of glass, 
and to keep it all going involves a yearly outlay of 
£20,000. That which meets the eye or comes 
within the ken of the ordinary visitor to the 
Gardens is only a part, and by no means the most 
important part, of the establishment. 
It is a huge botanical clearing house a, centre 
of exchange, a wealthy and munificent nursing mo- 
ther for all the minor establishments of the kind 
throughout the British Empire ; it is a depot to 
which they can confidently apply whenever they 
want instructions, or plants, or seeds ; it is a 
fountain head of infomiation for anvbody who 
needs it ; and though, naturally enough, Kew 
gives the first place in its consideration to the 
British possessions, is on terms of friendly 
open-handed intercourse with all the world, freely 
exchanging: its treasures with any public garden 
anywhere under the broad canopy of heaven. 
In the sanctum of the Director there are cup- 
boards full of correspondence in all sorts of lan- 
guages, and from all parts of the world. Ceylon, it 
may be, finds its coffee plantations being ravaged 
by disease, submits a specimen of the mischief 
going on to the experts of the physiological labor- 
atory here, and asks for advice. A merchant in 
the City has received from some odd corner of the 
earth samples of an unfamiliar fibrous plant, or 
one which it is believed may yield a new vegetable 
dye. He can go to Kew and learn all about it — 
what the plant is. where it grows, and whether it 
has already been utilised, and with what results. 
India some year s ago had no cinchona tree from 
which to extract the invaluable quinine. Kew 
suggested that it might very well be grown there, 
and sent out a stock of plants, and now India 
yields enormous quantities of quinine. The same 
has been done for other British dependencies, and 
quinine, which at one time fetched sixteen shil- 
lings an ounce, sells now for four or five. 
It is always spring and it is always sumnier and 
autumn in one part of the world or another, and 
all the year round there keep coming into this 
great central depot parcels of seeds and growing 
plants cunningly packed in Wardian cases, many 
of the most dainty and delicate of the denizens of 
earth's fairest regions turning out on the tables 
here perfectly fresh and flourishing after travelling 
perhaps many thousands of miles from the other 
side of the world. The invention of the Wardian 
case— an invention only about fifty years old — has 
greatly facilitated the transmission of Rowing 
giants between England and the Colonies, and 
elped to disseminate fruits and flowers and "eco- 
nomic" plants generally throughout the world. 
The young nurslings are enclosed in a box, well 
watered, and tightly shut down under glass, and 
many of them will thrive better in this limited 
space than they are found to do afterwards in 
the magnificent great glasshouses of K«w 
Gflrdens, 
