THE KEW MUSEUMS. 
I2 3 
It would probably seem to an outsider that with the rapid 
steam communication we now possess with different parts of the 
world, the products of the earth must by this time be pretty well 
known. To a certain extent this is true, but new products or 
new appplications for old ones are constantly being discovered, 
and it not unfrequently happens that a new oil seed, fibre, bark 
or what not arrives at an English port, and being unknown to 
the brokers, does not find a buyer. In such cases samples are 
mostly sent to the Kew Museums for identification. 
Liverpool is the chief port to which these interesting novelties 
find their way, mostly from the west coast of Africa and Brazil, 
and products unknown in English commerce are nearly always 
sent in small quantities to the Kew Museums for their scientific 
names, and any information as to their properties, value, and the 
probability of the supply meeting the demand, should such arise. 
Thus for instance there is always a market — fluctuating, it may 
be — for oil seeds, and these come into Liverpool in large quanti- 
ties. Seed crushers, however, will not venture on the expression 
of oil in any quantity without first knowing something of the 
properties of the seed which yields the oil, for upon this depends 
the use to which the oil may be put, and its consequent value. 
From a knowledge of the botanical affinity of the seed the 
nature of the oil itself, whether bland or sweet, acrid or poisonous, 
can be ascertained, besides which the marc or cake, after the 
expression of the oil, if of a sweet or harmless character, can be 
used for feeding cattle, while that from an acrid or poisonous 
seed would result in dangerous or even fatal consequences. 
For instance, in the natural order Compositse, the seeds of 
which are mostly of an oleaginous character, the oil yielded is 
principally of a sweet nature, as that of the Safflower ( Carthamus 
tinctorius), while those of the Euphorbiacese are of a purgative 
character like the castor oil ( Ricinus communis). It is with such 
points as these connected with plants in all their varied uses 
that Kew is now called upon to give information, and it is in 
the Museums of Economic Botany that specimens of almost 
every known product of vegetable origin are to be found, so 
arranged that they can be referred to and compared imme- 
diately they are wanted. 
Royal Gardens, Kew. J. R. Jackson. 
(To be continued.) 
(29.) 
SOME LONDON BIRDS. 
(Continued from page 112.) 
WALLOW (Hirundo 
rustica ) . — A 
ibout 
summer 
the third 
visitor. Usually appears 
week in April. 
(30.) Martin (Chelidon urbica ). — Summer visitor. It used 
to nest regularly on several houses in the neighbourhood 
