.

Many of the important economical productions of China are little known
in this country; we are, however, daily gaining additions to our
knowledge of them; and within the last few years, much valuable
information has been obtained respecting the productive resources of
the Eastern Empire. The grass-cloth of China only became known in
Europe a few years ago, but it now ranks as one of the important
fabrics of British manufacture. Daily discoveries seem to shew that
there are Chinese products of equal importance, as yet unknown to us.
On the present occasion, we call the attention of our readers to a
substance which has been long known, as well as the plant which
produces it, but neither of which has hitherto been prominently
brought into general notice in Britain. For our information respecting
the uses of the tallow-tree, we express our chief obligations to a
paper by Dr D. J. Macgowan, published in the Journal of the
Agricultural and Horticultural Society of India.[1]

The tallow-tree of China is the _Stillingia sebifera_ of botanists; a
plant originally indigenous to China, where it occurs in wet
situations, but which is now somewhat common in various parts of India
and America, chiefly as an ornamental tree. In Roxburgh's time, it was
very common about Calcutta, where, in the course of a few years, it
became one of the most common trees; and it has become almost
naturalised in the maritime parts of South Carolina. In China alone,
however, is it as yet appreciated as an economical plant, and there
alone are its products properly elaborated. It is chiefly prized for
the fatty matter which it yields, and from which it derives its
appropriate name; but it affords other products of value: 'its leaves
are employed as a black dye; its wood being hard and durable, may be
easily used for printing-blocks and various other articles; and,
finally, the refuse of the nut is employed as fuel and manure.... It
grows alike on low alluvial plains and on granite hills, on the rich
mould at the margin of canals, and on the sandy sea-beach. The sandy
estuary of Hangchan yields little else; some of the trees at this
place are known to be several hundred years old, and though
prostrated, still send forth branches and bear fruit.... They are
seldom planted where anything else can be conveniently cultivated--but
in detached places, in corners about houses, roads, canals, and
fields.'

The sebaceous matter, or vegetable tallow, is conta