and 



( 4' ) 



beyond the Atlantic : nothing is therefore more ne- 

 cessary than to facilitate the transportation of seeds and 

 plants into distant countries in a state of vegetation. 

 The ingenious and great promoter of natural history, 

 John Ellis, Esq ; has favoured the world with a curious 

 pamphlet, containing the best dire6lions for that purpose ; 

 it would be therefore superfluous to repeat what he has 

 already said, were it not necessary to make my perform- 

 ance more compleat, by inserting a few hints abstra6led 

 from his useful publication ; and adding to it some re- 

 marks of my own. 



Seeds of all kinds, intended to be sent abroad, must 

 be colle6led perfc6lly ripe in dry weather, and kept dry 

 without exposing them to sunshine. Hard nuts, and 

 leguminous seeds, may be plunged for a moment in the 

 preparing liquor and then dried again, as this would 

 prevent insedls from attacking them. In general must 

 the seeds be previously examined, and care taken that 

 no inse6ls may be sent with them ; this can sometimes 

 be discovered by the naked eye, sometimes by a magnify- 

 ing glass, and by a little brown or black spot on the out- 

 side of the seed ; such ripe and chosen seeds, if of a good 

 size, each of them may be wrapped in a flat piece of 

 bees-wax ; if small or quite minute, many may be put 

 together in such a piece of bees-wax, or, what is still 

 better, in a piece of cerate paper, i. e. paper steeped in 

 melted bees-wax, and all these parcels must be put in a 

 pot or box, proportionate to the quantity of seeds you 

 have, filled with melted wax, to the height of about the 

 size of the seeds you are to send, or the parcels you have 

 made; and when the wax is pretty cool, but still soft, 

 lay your seeds or parcels in rows in the soft wax, and then 

 fill again some melted wax in, and proceed to lay seeds 

 in the same manner till your pot or box be full. Pulpy 

 seeds, as those of strawberries, mulberries, arbutus's, 



D may 



