INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
In the volumes, issued by the Victorian Aoclimation-Society from
1871 to 1878, five contributions have appeared concerning such
industrial plants, as are available for culture in extra-tropical
countries or in high mountain-regions within the tropics. These
writings were mainly offered with a view of promoting the introduction
and diffusion of the very many kinds of utilitarian plants,
which may be extensively roared in the forests, fields, pastures and
gardens of temperate geographic latitudes. But the work thu?
originated became accessible merely to the members of the Society,
while frequent calls arose for these or some similar data, not only
throughout the Australian communities, but also abroad. The whole
was therefore re-arranged and largely supplemented, first for re-issue
in Victoria and later also for publication in India, there under the
auspices of the Central Government a t Calcutta. Subsequently the
work was likewise honoured by being reprinted, with numerous additions,
for the use of New South Wales ; and a t nearly the same time
it went through a German translation, by Dr. Goeze, in Herr Th.
Fischer’s publishing establishment of Cassel. In 1884 it appeared,
revised and still further augmented, more particularly for North-
American use, through the generous interest of one of the most
enterprising scientific publishers in the United States, Mr. George
Davis of Detroit. Four Victorian editions having become exhausted,
the present one is offered now, again further enlarged by such notes,
as could be added recently. As stated in the preface to the original
essays, they did not claim completeness, either as a specific index
to or as a series of notes on the respective rural or technologic
applicability of the plants enumerated. But what these writings
may perhaps aspire to, is to bring together some condensed data in
popular language on all the principal economic plants, hitherto known
to prosper beyond the equinoctial zone. Information of this kind is
widely scattered, and often only accessible through voluminous and