92 OPERATIONS OF GARDENING. PART T. 



tional expense, moreover, would not amount to anything like the 

 value of the plants that without it would be lost. 



The native dealers keep their plants often a long time out of 

 the ground, conveying them about for sale sometimes for a 

 period of two or three months. To do this they knead up round 

 their roots the clayey kind of earth in which they grow them 

 to a small compact ball. 



Fruit-trees and . large shrubs may be dug up in the cold 

 season and conveyed in native-carts to a great distance, without 

 suffering much injury, if they be occasionally watered during 

 the journey. In this way very many plants are annually sent 

 forth from the Saharunpore Botanical Gardens to different 

 parts of the North- West Provinces. 



When plants have become to a certain extent dried up from 

 the length of time they have been out of ground during their 

 conveyance, it has been recommended as an excellent plan to 

 steep their roots before planting them in a mixture of cow-dung 

 and water of the consistency of gruel. 



M. Ysabeau says, what might be readily taken for granted, 

 that shrubs, such as young Kose- trees that have suffered from 

 a similar cause, do well by having their sterns and principal 

 branches plastered over with a mixture of clay and cow-dung. 

 This serves to keep them moist and protect them from the air. 

 The plaster will fall off of itself in due time, when the young 

 trees have become established.* 



But while upon the subject of conveyance, I must not omit 

 to mention how successful has proved the transmission by sample- 

 post of cuttings carefully packed in moss. Of fifty sent from 

 Calcutta to Indore, some, the recipient stated, had even begun 

 to form a callus by the time they arrived. Mr. S. Jennings of 

 Allahabad, likewise stated t that he had received fifteen cuttings 

 thus sent, viz., seven Crotons, five Dracoenas, and three Ixoras, 

 "nearly the whole fresh and green." The Agri-Horticultural 

 Society accordingly now present a list of plants that may be 

 thus propagated, and of which they undertake to send cuttings 

 to members who apply for them. The mode of treating 

 these cuttings, when received, will be much the same as that 

 given for cuttings in general, at p. 79. 



* * Le Jardinicr de tout le Monde,' p. 264. t December 15, 1871 . 



