Notices— Australasia. 209 



I hardly dare say how acceptable a few fruit trees would be, particularly 

 apples, pears, cherries, and plums. The New Town pippin, and all the 

 apples and cherries of your own rearing, I am sure, would thrive and ripen 

 well in this climate. I am no great florist, but should like to see a moss 

 rose, and a few varieties of roses, a woodbine, southernwood and worm- 

 wood ; and the primrose, cowslip, polyanthus, and auricula, would be most 

 pleasing to a person so long from England as I have been. 



The common crab for procuring good stocks (I am looking a long way 

 forward), also the Siberian and French crabs, would be very acceptable. 

 I have requested Captain Carnes to procure me a few seeds of culinary 

 vegetables, from the most celebrated seedsman in London, and have directed 

 him to wrap them up in common brown paper, and bring them in his trunk 

 with his clothes, or any chest standing in a cabin, that will be opened two 

 or three times in a week, by which they will get aired. I have known 

 persons arrive in this colony, who have taken great pains to have seeds 

 soldered up in tin cases, or packed in paper cases, covered with three or 

 four coats of varnish, which on their arrival, were entirely useless, though 

 to all appearance perfectly good; while a few seeds brought casually in a 

 trunk in brown paper, were as good as when packed in England ; the 

 reason is very obvious; those in tin cases, &c. were packed in some other 

 large package, and stowed in the ship's hold, where it is probable, it was 

 not again seen till the end of the voyage ; the consequence was, that the 

 heat of the air in the hold, in crossing the Torrid Zone, was so great as to 

 destroy the vegetative principle of the seeds. It is impossible to conceive 

 the oppressive heat of the stagnant air in a ship's hold, when under the 

 Equator, except by those who have experienced it. A few years ago, the 

 ship Lusitania brought here two hogshead of garden and grass seeds, which 

 were perfectly air-tight ; they were readily purchased, as they had such a 

 fine dry appearance, and the ship had experienced a very short passage ; 

 not one seed in 10,000 grew, while a few ounces of different seeds brought 

 by a passenger from the same seedsman were perfectly good. I received 

 some seeds from a friend in Kent, of the golden Canterbury hop, which he 

 informs me was tried previous to his writing to me, to prove its goodness, 

 of which he assures me, he sealed it tight in a bottle, and I cannot get one 

 to vegetate, though sown on an old melon bed, under the lights. In 

 another instance, a friend of mine, anxious to bring seeds safe, purchased 

 several sets of wine decanters with ground glass stoppers, in which he 

 packed his seeds; there was not one grew. I conceive the air in the 

 bottles had got stagnant and putrid ; I may probably be wrong in assign- 

 ing the cause, but such was the effect. This may be no information to 

 you, but I think it would be well to recommend to persons taking seeds 

 from England to the southern hemisphere, to pack them in the simple 

 method I have described. If taken to Canada, or a climate north of Eng- 

 land, it would probably be well to pack them tight to prevent damps. I 

 beg leave to subscribe myself. 



Sir, 

 Your most obedient, 



Joseph Knight, Esq. Humble servant, 



King's Road, Chelsea. James Gordon. 



From the Hobart's Town Gazette. A principal part of our colonial 

 politics is, the enormous fluctuation in the price of wheat. We have 

 viewed, with no small degree of alarm, the late excessive price of this 

 necessary article of consumption. We have no want of butcher's meat at 

 a moderate price. The late alteration in the duties of spirits have so affected 

 the distilleries that a great quantity of barley is now in the country, and a 

 portion of that, mixed with the wheat, makes wholesome and even palatable 

 bread — and our climate- is at all times propitious to the growth of 



