1885.J PACKING NURSERY TREES. 461 



not always facts, I will therefore give a few of our experiments 

 in dry packing. 



During the winter of 1852 or 1853 a neighbour bought 17,000 

 apple root grafts, intending to start a nursery in Iowa in the spring ; 

 but he finally concluded to go to California and liail no use for 

 tliem. He asked my opinion about whether it would be safe to 

 take them with him. I had crossed the Isthmus three years 

 previously, and considered there was great danger ; but told him 

 I would like to see the experiment tried, and if he would risk 

 them, I would find packing material and pack them witliout charge. 

 Our moss was damp ; I spread it on shelves in the grafting room 

 till the day before he started. As the grafts had to be packed 

 across the Isthmus on mules, we packed them in shoe-boxes, lining 

 the boxes with strong paper ; and knowing they were liable to be 

 exposed to rain on the Isthmus, we lined the boxes inside the paper 

 with cotton batting to absorb the moisture, as if wet they would 

 certainly heat. The trees were tied 100 in each bundle, and moss 

 was placed between the layers. They were hauled from here to 

 Chicago in a lumber waggon, in very cold weather, in the dead of 

 winter — we had no railroads then — and went on to New York. 

 Unfortunately they were delayed on the way and then again on 

 the Isthmus, yet, after all, they reached their destination in perfect 

 order, and were sold to a nurseryman at a large profit, and grew 

 well. 



During the winter of 1879 we sent a package of Catalpa trees to 

 Mr. Vincent, Conservator of Forests for the Government in the 

 Punjab, in the East Indies. They were packed in dry moss 

 enclosed in oiled paper. They went by way of Europe. He 

 " heeled them in " for five days, then planted them ; they all grew. 

 He wrote us that when they had been planted just six months he 

 measured them, and the tallest measured 10 feet in height. This 

 proves conclusively that the vitality of the trees had not been 

 injured in the least. 



We shipped trees to China, packed in dry moss, in 1881, by 

 way of San Francisco ; but the freight was enormous, and learning 

 that we could ship via New York at lower rates than we can ship 

 from here to the Eocky Mountains, we concluded to try the experi- 

 ment. We took a strong, tight box, lined it with strong paper, 

 and during the winter packed 1000 Catalpa speciosa trees 12 

 to 18 inches in height, in dry moss, kept them in the pacldng- 

 house during the winter, and in the spring moved them into a small 

 building we used as a tool-house, with a large window on the 

 south and another on the west, into which the sun had free access, 

 believing that this would be as trying a position as they could be 



