done for a time, is to be hoped that a Plant-Pathologist will be 
allowed by Parliament for this District. 
Everyone who knows the Tropics will understand the enormous 
importance of the proposed Botanical Garden and Laboratory m 
Amani, Usambare, for the economical development of German East 
Africa. 
The future of the Cotton cultivation in logo depends almost 
entirely upon the yet unsettled question of transport for at present 
almost all cattle perish on the way from the coast to Tove. The 
only way out of this difficulty is through building a railway and if 
anywhere in a German Colony a railway is to have, economically, 
a future, it must be the one from Lome to the Agu and Mixsahohe 
Districts as by it a densely populated and productive district will 
be opened. 
The development of German Southwest Africa will be much aided 
by the railway to Windhoek now under construction, and. this 
country will have to look towards the breeding of cattle and mining 
as its chief industries. For the former the boring of wells is of para- 
mount importance and a good deal in this direction has been done 
by the Colonial Economical Committee. 
Thanks are due to the Government for the creation of a b orest 
Department at Windhoek. 
In New Guinea, we hear, the cultivation of Tobacco is to be 
abandoned totally as not paying. The cultivation of Castilloa, 
Ficus elastiea and Hevea seem to progress favourably. The New 
Guinea Co. is about to take up the cultivation of Gutta Perclia and 
there is no doubt that the expedition organised by our Society and 
the cuttings brought by it to our Colonies has had much to do with 
the introduction there of this important cultivation. 
The coconut is bound to remain the main article of the Southern 
Seas and the European Companies cultivating it are continually 
extending their acreage 
In Samoa a fair start has been made with Cocoa; the excellent 
Cotton however which grows there has been totally abandoned on 
account of the uncertainty of the crops and the difficulty of getting 
labour in Samoa as well as in New Guinea and the Bismarck Achi- 
pelago. The New Guinea Co. propose to pay more attention to 
Liberian Coffee and Cocoa; the samples of Liberian Coffee from 
there have brought good prices. The experiments with Ramie 
were a failure owing to a beetle which consumed the leaves of the 
plants. 
During the coming years a good deal of attention, on the part of 
the Government as well as of Companies will have to be devoted 
to cultivations by Natives. As the Natives, of their own impulse, 
will always grow only as much as they require themselves, we must 
lead them to cultivate more with a view of exporting their goods. 
Such an extention of the cultivation can be accomplished in two 
ways, through compulsion and through augmenting the needs of 
the Natives. 
All these question which are of fundamental interest for our Colo- 
nies afford a large field for work to this Periodical as well as to 
