Country Life
THE NEW PLANTS.
It is the dream of most botanists that some plant will be found or made which will do for humanity such service as was done in the past by the discovery of wheat, barley, oats, rice, cotton, flax or bamboo. There never were more ardent hopes than to-day, when we have learnt to convert most forms of fibre into articles of use: the hunt is up, not in one country, but in most. Two hybrid plants, of which a good deal has been said, are being grown in Britain : they are known by the queer names of Brotex and Erbifex, of which the second is the newer, though not perhaps the less promising. It is one of the special virtues of the British Empire that whatever we have we may try in almost any of the soils and climates that the world contains ; and both these plants are enjoying at present a very far-flung trial.
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