Occasional Notes. 349 
" Sugar is due, and if our Cane Planters have a rude awakening by 
11 finding their own home markets invaded by Germany or Austria, it 
11 may at length cause them to realise their position, and to ask how 
" they can continue to make a profit if they sacrifice two-thirds of their 
l( possible income." 
It may interest the Produce Market Review to know that average cane, 
yielding juice of O/5 Bm„ only contains about 13 per cent, of total sugar 
(sucrose and glucose), and the prevailing methods of manufacture 
enable from g to 11 thirteenths of that quantity to be obtained as sugar, 
molasses and rum. Doubtless, Diffusion will help planters to the 
remainder, but that is as yet unproved. 
9 ♦— 
Export of Plants and Bird-skins.— Special attention 
has recently been drawn to this subje6l in the annual 
report of the Government Botanist ; and to meet it 
efficiently in the first case it has been proposed that a 
small tax be placed on all plants exported — if only a 
nominal tax — in order not only to secure an accurate 
return of articles exported and to prote6l the plants that 
are thus subje6l to being considerably thinned if not 
exterminated, but also that the colony should thus benefit 
from its natural and valuable products. Certainly this is 
an advisable step, and one more worthy of consideration 
than an alternative scheme, that hasbeen mentioned to me 
as likely to be enforced, namely that a lump sum should be 
fixed, on the payment of which, a licence should be 
granted to colle6l and export plants for a time specified. 
In the former case the tax imposed would fall equally on 
all exporters, besides securing an accurate return ; while 
in the latter case not only would a small export of a few 
very interesting plants be pra6lically prevented by a pro- 
hibitive licence, the cost of which would necessarily be 
out of all proportion to, say a dozen or two dozen, plants 
which it might be desired to have exported ; but tjie 
Y Y 
