One of the most singular plants in the island is the jalapa mirabilis, or four o'clock flower, which keeps its petals closed during the hottest hours of the day, and only opens them in the cool part of the afternoon.

Roucon, or arnotto tree, is found here abundantly; the seeds are covered with a waxy substance, which are similar to that of the ceroxylon Andicola, though not in sufficient abundance to convert to the use which in South America is made of the latter. The people of the Quindiu Andes, we are told by Humboldt, fabricate tapers with the thick layers of wax that cover the trunk of this palm.

A variety of indigenous plants have been of late recommended for cultivation, in lieu of those expensive cultures which it is apprehended the new measure will impede or diminish. Of these there are three which deserve the serious attention of the planters; namely, the caoutchouc plant, the coulteria tinctoria, and the pita. The withe, which yields the Indian rubber, in Jamaica abounds in the woodlands. In South America there are two trees which produce the Indian rubber of commerce-the hevea caoutchouc and the jatrophia elastica. The merit of bringing this plant lately into notice belongs to a Mr. M Geachy; but it appears to have been made known to Lord Belmore, who carried to England various preparations of it. The mode of collecting it is by cutting through the withe, and allowing the milky juice to exude, and then coagulating it with alum; in this state it is fit to cast into moulds any shade. " "A good withe may produce at one flowing from one half to a whole pint. I should think," says, Mr. M.Geachy, the length of a foot of the withe would produce enough of the milk, if properly extracted, to make a cubic inch of good Indian rubber. I tried it on cloth, which I rendered perfectly waterproof, simply by immersion in the liquid, and exposure to the sun." In America the consumption of Indian rubber is immense, and every day the application of its use is extending. A patent has been lately taken

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out for its employment for the inside sheathing of vessels. The coulteria tinctoria has been lately described by Dr. M'Fadgyen in the Jamaica Physical Journal, a very excellent médical periodical, edited by Dr. Paul.

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The following is the substance of that description:This plant is a native of Peru. It was introduced about two years ago into this country. Some plants of it were tried in the garden at Hope estate, Liguanea, where they have thriven, and produce frequent crops of pods in the course of the year. It grows so freely, indeed, as to have become a weed.

"It thrives in the most parched and arid of our plains. It may therefore be cultivated in the extensive savannahs in the neighbourhood of Kingston, which, at present, produce little else than fire wood. It soon comes into bearing;-a plantation of it would last for a period of twenty or thirty years.

"The pods of this plant contain tannin and gallic acid in a greater proportion than exists in any other vegetable production. Hence, they may, in the first place, be used as a substitute for oak-bark in the process of tanning. According to the report of an intelligent tanner, at Sandwich, communicated to Dr. Hamilton at Plymouth, they are four times stronger than oak-bark. The process is also much quicker, a piece of leather being tanned with them in a fortnight.'

"These pods may, in the second place, be employed in dyeing and ink-making, as a substitute for Aleppo galls. It can be easily proved, by very simple experiments, that the gallic acid is more abundant in the pods of this plant than in the best Aleppo galls. If, therefore, it can be brought to market at a cheaper rate, it has, in every respect, the advantage. We are to bear in mind it grows in land unfit for any other cultivation; no works, no instruments, and no expensive process, are required to prepare the article for market: the only labour required, after the plantation has been established, is that of collecting the crop. We may set

down the price in London at £23. 6s. 8d. per ton, while the usual London market-price of Aleppo galls is £50 sterling.

"Let us suppose an acre to contain 3556 of these shrubs, and that each shrub yields five pounds of pods; the total produce would be about seven tons, which would give to the grower £89. 4s. 1d. for a single acre, -a return which, if we take every thing into consideration, far exceeds what either sugar or coffee ever gave in the best of times.

"I flatter myself that I have not exaggerated the value of this plant. We are approaching a period when the usual articles of cultivation must, of necessity, be, in a great measure, given up.

The following is an abridged account of the pita plant, communicated by Dr. Bancroft to the Jamaica Agricultural Society.

Another plant which Dr. Hamilton strongly recommends for cultivation in this island, is the pita, the fibres of which, prepared by maceration, are very extensively used in South America, for cordage of various descriptions, particularly in shipping. This plant is the Bromelia pita, and belongs to the same genus with the pine-apple and the common penguin. The same low, dry, and poor soils, that suit the penguin, would be equally favorable for the growth of the pita. Dr. Hamilton states, that the fibre of the pita has been found to possess many advantages over, not only hemp, but every other fibrous substance employed in the manufacture of canvass or cordage. He has had specimens of this fibre from Carthagena, which measured ten feet in length, or between three and four times the ordinary length of the best hemp. As to its lightness, he has been able to ascertain the difference of weights of equal bulks of pita and of hemp to be one-sixth in favour of the former: hence, taking the weight of the standing and the running rigging of a man-of-war, made of hemp, at twelve tons, a reduction of two tons in the top weight would be effected by the substitution of the pita. Dr.

Hamilton mentions that experiments have been carefully made by Captain M'Adam, of the Royal Marines, on the respective properties of this fibre and that of hemp; from which he is enabled to state that, while a hempen cord of fifty fathoms, exposed to wet, contracted above twenty-one feet, a similar cord from pita, under the same circumstances, contracted only between fifteen and sixteen feet. It appears that the average importation of hemp and flax, during the last five years, was about 28,677 tons, the whole of which might be more advantageously supplied by pita cultivated in our own colonies.

It appears, besides, that from three to four acres of land are required to produce a ton of flax, but that five acres of the best land in Russia will only produce a ton of hemp. Now, by substituting pita for the quantity of hemp and of flax annually imported from Russia, which is estimated as amounting together to 25,000 tons, we should not only diminish the pecuniary balance of trade against us, but we should bring nearly 74,000 acres of the present wastes of our colonies in the West Indies under a lucrative culture.

There are three plants which were formerly largely and beneficially cultivated in this island, and the cultivation of which, as staple commodities, may now be considered as wholly abandoned, that of indigo, cotton, and cocoa. In 1774, the export of indigo from Jamaica was 141,400 lbs.: at the present time, not a pound of this valuable commodity is exported from the colony. In 1670, it is stated by Blome, there were sixty cocoawalks in the island; now, I believe, there is not one which deserves the name of a cocoa-plantation. In 1768, there were 492,600 lbs. of cotton exported from this island; Mr. Martin estimates the quantity now raised at 50,000 lbs. What is the cause of this extraordinary abandonment of culture so suitable to the soil, and so profitable to cultivators in other countries? Is it excessive taxation, or the exhaustion of the soil, or the embarrassments of the planters? These are questions VOL. II.

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of great importance to the colonists; and, unwilling to trust to the published accounts of the occasion of the decline in the cultivation of these three descriptions of produce, I put the following questions to Mr. Welwood Hyslop, a member of the House of Assembly, whose intelligence I have the highest respect for:

What has occasioned the abandonment of the culture of indigo, cotton, and cocoa?

Can their culture be again revived?

And if so, can they be substituted in lieu of the cultivation of sugar with advantage to the proprietor?

To these replies, I received the following answer:"The decrease in the cultivation of indigo, cotton, and cocoa, is owing to various causes-chiefly to excessive taxation, partly to the exhaustion of the soil of the old estates. Indigo was once exclusively cultivated, but, owing to raising the duties about threequarters of a century ago, it ceased to be a staple, and now is not cultivated at all. The remains of the ruined indigo-works are still visible in Vere and Liguanea. The government, to meet the expenses of the war, was driven to oppressive taxation on colonial produce. But the levying of excessive imposts on a young product proved that two and two do not always make four in political arithmetic. The culture ceased altogether. Cotton and indigo may be produced on cane land generally, but not profitably. Sugar is the great staple of the island, and nothing on the plains can be grown to such advantage:-coffee and cocoa are best calculated for the mountains. Mr. Pitt carried his taxing views to an enormous pitch."

Farther inquiries confirmed the opinion of Mr. Hyslop, that excessive taxation had greatly diminished the cultivation of indigo, but also proved to me that it was not the cause which occasioned it to be abandoned. It was abandoned because it was found a more precarious culture than it had formerly been, or that the climate had become more unfavourable than heretofore for its production. At all events, it was not given up till every