The mind of a certain old and famous gardener must
have been playing with this dream when he said to me the other day : " The plant may revolutionize the industry." He was talking of a newly discovered variety of cane so rich in sugar that if too well cultivated it will choke itself with its own excess of sweetness. He and others have been growing the plant in some of the " artificial tropics " that have been made in English greenhouses, and a pioneer group of plants has been sent out to East Africa. Here is a perfect example of one of the essential virtues of a "far-flung Empire." By the accident, so to say, of the collection of all the climates in one Empire, all sorts of enterprises in both botany and zoology have been set on foot to the very great advantage of the civilized world ; and never was such botanical energy more effective than to-day, in regard to plants useful and plants beautiful. Sir Arthur Hill, the Director of Kew, has done in one sphere what Mr. Kingdom Ward has done in another. With the glory of the primula florindoe or meconopsis baileyi may be compared this new sugar or a number of the varieties of plant tried out in co-operation between Kew
and Tanganyika. * * * *
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