442 



SCIENCE OF GARDENING. Part II. 



2310. Seeds. When seeds are to be preserved longer than the usual period, or when 

 they are to be sent to a great distance, various devices have been adopted to preserve their 

 vitality. Sugar, salt, tallow, cotton, sawdust, sand, clay, paper, &c. have been adopted 

 with different degrees of success. 



231 1. Livingston, who, from a long residence in China, is well informed on the horticul- 

 ture of the Chinese, states that, " from April to October, rain is so frequent in China, and 

 the air is generally so moist, that it is nearly impossible to preserve seeds. If excluded 

 from the air they are quickly covered with mildew, and when exposed, no less certainly 

 destroyed by insects." He proposes to dry Chinese seeds by means of sulphuric acid, in 

 Leslie's manner, which he found dried " small seeds in two days, and the largest seeds 

 in less than a week. Seeds thus dried," he observes, " may be afterwards preserved in 

 a vegetating state for any necessary length of time by keeping them in an airy situation 

 in common brown paper, and occasionally exposing them to the air in a fine day, espe- 

 cially after damp weather. This method will succeed with all the larger mucilaginous 

 seeds. Very small seeds, berries, and oily seeds may probably require to be kept 

 in sugar, or among currants or raisins." (Hort. Trans, vol. iii. 184., and the article 

 ColcC'm Supp. Encyc. Brit.) It is probable many seeds might be preserved and sent to 

 a distance with safety, if, after being thoroughly matured and dried, they were enveloped 

 or baked into a large ball of loam. Such a mode, at all events, being suggested by na- 

 ture, deserves a trial. 



2312. Nuts sent from the East Indies, compactly packed in a barrel of clay, and the head of the cask firmly 

 put on, have made a partial developement of their parts during the voyage, and still grown after their arrival 



Liiuueus, writing to John Ellis says, " Fresh seeds may be conveyed in the following manner :— Fill 

 a glass vessel with seeds, so deposited in dry sand as not to touch each other, that they may freely 

 perspire through the sand, laving a bladder or piece of paper, over the mouth of the vessel. This glass 

 must be placed in one of larger dimensions, the intermediate space, of about two inches all round, being 

 quite filled with three parts nitre, one of common sea-salt, and two of sal-ammoniac, all powdered and 

 mixed, but not dried. This mixture will produce a constant cold, so as to prevent any injury to the 

 seeds from external heat, as has been proved by experience." {Corresp. U. Linn. 110.) Ellis very cor- 

 rectly answers Linnaeus, that salts of no kind will generate cold air during dissolution, and that 

 afterwards the mixture, whether dry or fluid, will soon acquire the same temperature with the sur- 

 rounding air. He imagines the true use of salts to be to prevent putrefactive fermentation in the 

 seeds After trying a great variety of experiments on seeds and nuts sent to America, and even t nina, 

 he found that sweating acorns, then letting them become perfectly ; dry, and enveloping them in 

 melted tallow, or a mixture of melted tallow and wax, was the best mode. The tallow must not be hotter 

 than blood heat when the seeds or nuts are bedded in it ; each must be kept separate ; and the greatest 

 care had that they are thoroughly dried before being enveloped. Wax alone and gum he also found suc- 

 cessful ; but, on the whole, he found tallow best. Acorns kept a year in it, grew vigorously when taken 

 out and planted. {Corresp. of Linn. p. 119. et seq.) _ . 



2313. J. Howeson, when in Bengal, wrought a variety of seeds into a thick mucilage of gum Arabic, in 

 the same way that caraway seeds are wrought into dough in making gingerbread. These he afterwards 

 divided into small cakes, ani placed them in the sun, until perfectly dry ; but as a number of the seeds 

 stiU appeared on their surface, he dipped the cakes in a thin solution of gum, until the whole were com- 

 pletely covered. On looking into a trunk, twelve years after his return to this country, he found a cake 

 containing babul, or gum Arabic tree seeds, which, having separated, by dissolving the cake in water, he 

 sowed on a hot-bed, when the proportion of three out of four seeds became healthy plants. He adds, 

 " while I was in India, none of the methods then in use were effectual for bringing out garden-seeds from 

 England in a sound state, even although enclosed in varnished cases, and sealed bottles. It appeared to 

 me, that the air which occupied the spaces between the seeds contained a sufficient quantity of water in 

 solution to produce, during the ship's passage through the warm latitudes, a musty fermentation, which 

 inevitably destroys the living principle in seeds. It was from this view of the subject, that I was led 

 totally to exclude air, by giving to each its own envelope." (Caled. Mem. m. 2o8.) 



2314. Roots, cuttings, grafts, and perennial plants in general are preserved, till wanted, 

 in earth or moss, moderately moist, and shaded from the sun. The same principle is 

 followed in packing them to be sent to a distance. The roots or root-ends of the plants 

 or cuttings are enveloped in balls of clay or loam, wrapped round with moist moss, and 

 air is admitted to the tops. In this way orange-trees are sent from Genoa to any part 

 of Europe and North America in perfect preservation ; and cuttings of plants sent any 

 distance which can be accomplished in eight months, or even longer with some kinds. 

 Scions of the apple, pear, &c. if enveloped in clay, and wrapt up in moss or straw, and 

 then placed in a portable ice-house so as to prevent a greater heat than 32° from pene- 

 trating to them, would, there can be little doubt, keep a year, and might thus be sent 

 from England to Australasia or China. Knight found that the buds of fruit-trees might 

 be preserved in a vegetating state, and sent to a considerable distance, by reducing the 

 leaf-stalks to a short length, and enclosing the shoot in a double fold of cabbage-leaf, 

 bound close together at each end, and then enclosing the package in a letter. " It was 

 found advantageous to place the under surface of the cabbage-leaf inwards, by which the 

 enclosed branch was supplied with humidity, that being the perspirating surface of the 

 leaf, the other surface being nearly or wholly impervious to moisture." {Hort. Trans. 

 vol. iv. p. 403.) 



2315. Packing and conveying plants in pots. Plants in pots are packed among moss 

 in boxes, with their tops covered with a net, and sent to any distance where the climate 

 will not injure them, and where water is supplied. Where the climate is severe, they 

 are covered with a glazed tegument, and thus glass cases or temporary hot-houses are 

 employed in ships to carry tender plants from this country to the colder colonies, and to 



