42 ON PACKING SEEDS FOR A VOYAGE TO INDIA OR CHINA. 



the passage to India, China, or Australia, the temperature is 

 often changed ; at one period the seeds are broiling in a high 

 temperature under the line, a few days afterwards they are in a 

 cold damp atmosphere, when the vessel is running down her 

 ''easting" far to the south of the Cape of Good Hope. In the 

 case of India and China, the seeds again cross the line before 

 they arrive at their destination. When in a high temperature, 

 every particle of moisture is drawn out from the seeds into the 

 bottles, which become little stoves or Ward's Cases for the 

 time, and in which the first stage of germination commences. 

 Other circumstances, however, are not favourable, and the 

 vessel in the mean time sails onward in her course towards colder 

 latitudes, vegetation is checked, a mouldiness ensues, and tlie 

 vital principle of the seeds becomes extinct. This is what really 

 takes p'ace when seeds are packed in sealed bottles not perfectly 

 dry, and, as this system of packing has no advantages which I 

 know of, it is much better never to adopt it. 



Tliose seeds which were taken out in boxes lined with tin were 

 nearly all in good condition ; so were those whicii were packed 

 loosely in a canvas bag and suspended in the cabin. I have 

 already said that the season at IIong-Kong, when I arrived 

 there, was too hot for English seeds. After sowing a few for 

 tlie purpose of experiment, the remainder were taken to Chusan 

 and the other northern ports which I visited at that time. Dr. 

 Maxwell, of the Madras army, had a small garden on the island 

 of Chusan, whicli he rented from the Chinese. Here a greit 

 many of the seeds were sown, and the results as regards their 

 vegetation were the same as I have already related, and con- 

 firmed the experiments made under unfavourable circumstances 

 at Hong-Kong. But the climate of Chusan being much more 

 favourable to European seeds, tliey not only vegetated, but grew 

 afterwards with sfieat luxuriance.* 



* The natives, who had never seen any peas but the common field kinds, 

 ■were much surprised at the growth of our English ones, which in this fa- 

 voured climate attained a mucli greater size than they do at home. As the 

 stems grew in height, the Chinese, with their characteristic conceit, told us 

 that their own kinds were much better than ours, for that ours would pro- 

 duce nothing but stems and leaves. Rut when, in due course, the fine tall 

 rows were covered with a sheet of white bloom, and when the large pods 

 began to swell, the Chinese were fain to beg a portion of the produce to sow 

 in their own gardens. These, with many other seeds, were given to them 

 with much pleasure, and it is hoped are now cultivated to some extent — 

 unless, indeed, they have been destroyed as belonging to the " barbarian," 

 at the time the comfortable houses and hospitals were pulled down, which 

 were left in good condition by the English when the island was restored in 

 the spring of 1846. It is a curious fact that the moment the place was 

 evacuated the Chinese began to pull down the houses erected at considerable 

 expense by the English during their residence on the island. 



