21  i    ON  THE  KINDS  OP  RHUBARB  IN  RUSSIAN  COMMERCE. 
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  government  ex- 
clusively all  rhubarb  brought  by  caravans  of  Bucharian  mer- 
chants to  the  Russian  frontier.  After  the  diplomatic  relations 
between  Russia  and  China  had  become  more  intimate,  the  latter 
government  favored  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.  Subse- 
quently this  trade  was  regulated  by  contract.  The  Bucharians 
could  supply  the  demand  only  in  very  rare  cases,  and  the  con- 
cession 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  be- 
tween 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  Eng- 
land, among  them  rhubarb.  In  regard  to  the  locality  where  the 
rhubarb  exported  from  Canton  is  cultivated,  the  southern  pro- 
vinces 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 
