The havoc committed by the bark-collectors on these trees within the last twenty years has been very great. The entire quantity of "red bark" collected in 1859 did not reach to 5000 lbs., and in 1860 no "red bark" at all was got out, so that the trade is nearly extinct. In the valleys of the Chasuan and Limon Mr. Spruce saw about 200 of these trees standing, but only two or three were saplings which had not been disturbed; all the rest grew from old stools, whose circumference averaged from 4 to 5 feet. He was unable to find a single young plant under the trees, although many of the latter bore signs of having flowered in previous years; and this was explained by the flowering trees invariably growing in open places, where the ground was either weeded, or trodden down by cattle. Mr. Spruce describes the _C. succirubra_ or "red-bark" tree as very handsome, and he declares that, in looking out over the forest, he could never find any other tree at all comparable to it for beauty. It is fifty feet high, branching from about one-third of its height, with large, broadly ovate, deep green, and shining leaves, mixed with decaying ones of a blood-red colour, which give it a most striking appearance. The _Cascarilla magnifolia_, a very handsome tree, with a fragrant white flower, grows abundantly with the "red bark," and attains a height of 80 feet. After the arrival of Mr. Cross at Limon the work of collecting commenced in earnest. A piece of ground was fenced in, and Mr. Cross made a pit and prepared the soil to receive cuttings, of which he put in above a thousand on the 1st of August and following days; and he afterwards went round to all the old stools and put in as many layers from them as possible. "But," as Mr. Spruce most truly observes, "only those who have attempted to do anything in the forest, possessing scarcely any of the necessary appliances, can have any idea of the difficulties, and Mr. Cross's unremitting watchfulness alone enabled him to surmount them."