40 TRANSMITTING SEEDS, PLANTS, CUTTINGS, 



ought to be more generally adopted, more particularly now, 

 with the facilities afforded by the Post Office for transmission 

 from abroad. 



" With pulpy or berried seeds the above methods are by no 

 means satisfactory. I have found from experience that all 

 pulpy seeds succeed best when rubbed out in dry white sand. 

 After being spread out in the sun or wind for a day or two to 

 dry, the mass should be collected and packed firmly in stone 

 jars ; and when they reach their destination, the contents of the 

 jars should be taken out and covered with soil according to the 

 size of the seeds. By this method I have frequently sent to 

 Australia, Canada, and other distant parts of the world, the 

 seeds of Strawberries, Gooseberries, Raspberries, Brambles, 

 Currants, Blackberries, Laurels, Elderberries, Thorns, Hollies, 

 Yews, &c. Any portion of the pulp remaining with the seeds 

 seems less liable to decay when mixed with dry white sand 

 than with soil or Sphagnum. 



" For a long series of years it has been customary to send 

 home seeds packed in charcoal, and I regret to see it still re- 

 commended. Such a practice, however, ought to be entirely 

 abolished, as it tends to destroy the vitality of the seed. 

 Unless in the case of seeds with very fleshy cotyledons, few 

 others packed in this way ever grow. It is not necessary that 

 seeds should always be sent home in comparatively dry soil in 

 earthenware bottles. About eighteen years ago I had some seeds 

 of the Akee fruit (Blighia sapidd) sent from the West Indies. 

 The seeds had been put into a large old blacking-bottle (after 

 being thoroughly cleaned inside), in a mixture of soil and water, 

 firmly closed with a clean bung cork and thickly sealed over. 

 When they reached me, I broke the bottle, and found every 

 seed in a growing state. Each seed was put in a pot and set 

 in a dark place for a time, light being admitted gradually ; they 

 soon lost their pale hue, and are now fine thriving trees. This 

 simple method is also worthy of imitation with many hard 

 tropical seeds. 



" Wide-mouthed glass bottles are also extremely useful to 

 botanical collectors and amateur horticultural travellers. Dur- 

 ing my annual autumnal peregrinations, both in this country 

 and abroad, I have kept cuttings of rare stove and greenhouse 

 plants in clean old pickle-bottles in excellent preservation for a 

 fortnight, with a little moss and water, and have always found 

 them to succeed well after reaching home, if placed in an 

 ordinary propagating pit or frame, in a pot of fine sand covered 

 with a bell-glass. During a visit to the Forest of Fontainebleau, 

 I picked up a number of two-years-old seedling Oaks, Elms, 



