true that either very heavy weights are not handy, or the honest Indian wishes to sell water at the price of rubber; for the masses, as I have examined them freshly brought in for sale, contain a large quantity of water held mechanically in the interstices. Alum is sometimes used to coagulate the milk, but is thought to render the gum hard and less elastic. A full-grown tree should yield about eight gallons of milk when first tapped,—which is equivalent to sixteen pounds of rubber, worth from ten to twelve dollars. Although the law of Guatemala forbids the tapping of young trees, and tries to regulate the frequency of the attack, it is ineffectual to prevent the gradual destruction of the wild trees through improvident bleeding, and only the establishment of private plantations will prevent the final extinction of this most valuable source of rubber. The Para rubber (_Hevea brasiliensis_) grows only in swamps unfit for cultivation; the true rubber (_Ficus elastica_), so popular a house-plant, does not seem to thrive and yield a supply of rubber away from its native East Indies; and the Ceara rubber of South America (_Manihot Glaziovi_) is not of easy cultivation, so that the Castilloa certainly promises to be the tree, of the many known to produce rubber, most likely to supply in cultivation that useful gum civilized nations cannot now do without, although the science of adulteration has progressed so far that an ordinary pair of so-called rubber boots contain hardly a spoonful of the pure gum, the rest being sulphur, coal-tar, and other matters. The trees should be planted forty feet apart; and as the seed is very perishable, it should be planted, or at least packed in earth, as soon as gathered. _Sarsaparilla._—One of the most troublesome vejucos, or vines, common all through the forests of the Atlantic seaboard is the zarza, or sarsaparilla. Probably the American public is familiar with the popular remedies compounded in part with this valuable medicinal plant, which, belonging to the Smilax family, affects damp, warm forests, climbing to great heights over the trees. The portion used is the long, tough root; this the zarza-gatherer digs and pulls from the loose soil, replanting the stem, which in due time replaces its stolen roots, to be again robbed. The roots are washed, loosely bundled, and sold to the dealers, who have the fibres made up into tight rolls, a few hundred of which are then pressed together and sewed up in the thickest hide that can be found; for the “custom of trade” includes the wrapper in the tare of the more costly drug. Most of the sarsaparilla exported from Belize comes from Guatemala and Honduras; but from Livingston more than 60,000 pounds were exported in 1884, of an appraised value of ten cents per pound. The plant is easily propagated by cuttings or seeds, and of course needs no cultivation or clearing; the yield will average twenty pounds of dried root from each plant.