TRANSPORTATION OF FRUIT TREES. 



sorrowing and disappointed hearts can truly testify. On our Western Waters most 

 especially, do our steamboat officers and crew seem to have as little judgment about 

 the transportation of Trees, as a New Zealander has of logic chopping. It is not 

 unfrequently the case that I have observed a lot of most delicate Plants and Flowers, 

 placed in close proximity to the steam boiler, with a long destination, but of course 

 a very short life. The officers seem to have very little conception of the value of 

 their cargo, or the design of its owner. It makes no diflferance whether the invoice 

 is for one dollar or one thousand dollars. "All are served alike." To deliver the 

 boxes unbroken, or the Trees with "the bark on," is the top of their ambition. 



Among the several cases of neglect on one hand, and disappointment on the other, 

 that now repose on the memory, permit me to state the following, which may suffice 

 to demonstrate, or show up the bad system as heretofore practised. 



Some three years ago, a friend of ours ordered an invoice of Fruit Trees and 

 Roses, from Ellwanger and Barry, of Rochester, New York. It was Spring, and 

 being a dealer, the Trees were designed for spring sales. The invoice amounting to 

 some hundreds of dollars, came to hand by due course of mail, with advices that "the 

 Trees, &c., were shipped, via. Buffalo and Cleveland to Cincinnati." 



Our friend immediately began to take orders, and it was not long before all his 

 invoice was disposed of. But time, which is the arbiter of every man's fate, passed 

 on, and no Trees came to alleviate our friends sufferings. His customers called 

 repeatedly. The trees were expected "every hour," but like Hotspur "calling spi- 

 rits from the vasty deep," they "did not come." Spring was putting on her robe 

 of green — Roses were preparing to show their bloom — our friends patience was 

 quite exhausted — his customers withdrew their orders, in great disappointment to 

 him as well as themselves. As a last resort, application was made to the rail road 

 agents in Cincinnati to assist him in getting out of a dire dilemma — their good offices 

 were promised — the Telegraph was put into requisition, when return was made by 

 the agent in Cleveland that "the trees had not arrived." Sick at heart, our friend 

 gave up all as lost and abandoned the cargo to its fate. In this nervous repose, 

 however, he was not long permitted to remain. It was on a steaming hot afternoon, 

 when a compassionate gentleman stepped into the store of our friend, and informed 

 him that he was a resident of Cleveland — and that he had observed, for the past 

 two weeks, lying on the dock at that port, a lot of Fruit Trees marked to his address ! 

 The sun, most of this time, he represented as having shone out, each day, unusually 

 hot, and by that time he supposed the trees must be ruined ! And ruined, sure enough, 

 they were. The efforts of our friend to save them cost him more than they were 

 worth. Now we imagine the reader will say — "Why not make the transportation 

 line pay damages?" Well, this is just what our friend thought about, and talked 

 about, until he became so bewildered, as to give the whole matter up in despair. 

 Like Macbeth with Banquo's ghost, each line, would exclaim, " thou canst not say I 

 did it" — and so, to have danced out a suit in litigation, he would have had to com- 

 mence, I presume, at each end of the lines and closed up in the middle. Or like 

 who, when asked how he had taken prisoners such a company of men, ex- 

 laimed, '■^ faith an' I surrounded them!" 



