AT PRESENT IN RUSSIAN COMMERCE. 247 
collected roots only must be accepted. Accidental or intentional admixtures of other 
kinds of rhubarb must be carefully picked out. The cuttings of worm-eaten, spongy, 
or rotten spots, and all other offal obtained in cleaning rhubarb, must, according to the 
contract with the Chinese government, be burned in presence of the Bucharians.” 
Unfortunately we have still no knowledge of the true source of this rhubarb, chiefly 
because the Bucharians could by no means be induced to furnish dried specimens of the 
plant, or even roots entirely unpeeled or uncleaned. 
What I could learn from them in regard to collection, locality, and growth, does not 
reach beyond the accounts of Von Schroders, contained in his historical essay on the 
rhubarb trade in Russia. (Pharmac. Zeitschr. f. Russl. ii., no. 21, 22 ; see also Hallier’s 
Beitrage zur Geschichte des Rhabarber in Arch. d. Pharm. cxii. p. 67.) I will merely 
point out those facts which are important in establishing the principal kinds, to which 
I may still count the Moscovitic rhubarb as the starting-point of my examinations. 
Schroders states that the trade of the Russian government with rhubarb was organized 
between 1687 and 1698; in the latter year it was decreed to purchase for the govern¬ 
ment exclusively all rhubarb brought by caravans of Bucharian merchants to the Russian 
frontier. After the diplomatic relations between Russia and China had become more 
intimate, the latter government favoured this trade by making the exclusive monopoly 
of the Bucharians to sell the true rhubarb conditional, compelling them to sell this root 
only to the Russian government. Subsequently, this trade was regulated by contract. 
The Bucharians could supply the demand only in very rare cases, and the concession 
made in later years by the Russian government, that, after satisfying the wants of the 
crown, any excess might be disposed of, after the usual inspection to private parties, 
was rarely if ever carried out as far as the Moscovitic rhubarb is concerned. 
This fact of the incapability of obtaining a sufficient supply through the Bucharians, 
induced the Russian government to search for other sources in the accessible parts of 
China, and to experiment with the culture of rhubarb upon Russian soil; in this manner 
a trade was once opened at other points on the frontier of China, and for some time 
even, rhubarb grown in Siberia was employed. 
Travellers have never penetrated to the southern slope of Thibet, and it is therefore 
improbable that the rhubarb, directly or indirectly obtained from them, was from the 
true place. The importation of rhubarb still continues and furnishes one of those kinds 
which will hereafter be described. 
During the present century the commercial intercourse between China and England, 
via the East Indies, has assumed a continually increased importance, and the commerce 
of nearly all Europe now draws its supply of Chinese products via England, among them 
rhubarb. In regard to the locality where the rhubarb exported from Canton is culti¬ 
vated, the southern provinces are pointed out, which are accessible to explorations from 
the East Indies in the same manner as the Russians established connections in the north. 
But since the English have never penetrated to the rhubarb districts pointed out before, 
and since the Bucharians roaming through that country do not come to the English at 
the borders of the East Indies, the latter, like Russia now, do not obtain their rhubarb 
from those districts. 
Of late years a continually increasing trade in rhubarb has sprung up from Bucharia 
to Russia, the root being probably brought by Tartarian merchants to the Caspian Sea, 
and from thence up the Wolga to the fair at Nishni-Nowgorod; but nothing definite 
could be ascertained, notwithstanding the most diligent inquiries. From Nishni-Now¬ 
gorod this rhubarb is transported, chiefly by Jews, partly to Moscow and St. Petersburg, 
for the greatest part to White-Russia and Poland, even to Galicia, and occasionally to 
Vienna. 
As observed before, the descriptions of this root as given by Grassmann, Pereira, and 
others, agree very little amongst themselves and with the present commercial kind; its 
appearance, however, is sufficient to refute the assumption that it was grown in the 
same soil as the true Moscovitic; and, indeed, the information which we are enabled to 
obtain here in Russia points to its cultivation in Bucharia. 
Above, I believe, I have given the points which would suggest a ready nomenclature 
for the commercial varieties of rhubarb-root. Starting from the view that the former 
Russian crown rhubarb grows in a rather confined locality, accessible only to the Bu¬ 
charians, and that its importation has entirely ceased, I propose to retain for it the name 
of Moscovitic or crown rhubarb , by which it has been known for a long time. The 
