witliout fresh Supplies of Water and Air. 505 



sunshine, and for a longer one when the light is more feeble. 

 These are advantages which render the method easily prac- 

 ticable by persons of every class ; and will enable those who 

 are condemned to live in a smoky atmosphere to refresh their 

 sight with specimens of healthy vegetation within their own 

 abodes, although the district around them should exhibit only 

 the sickly and stunted forms of vegetable existence. 



The celebrated Franklin, who looked at every thing with the 

 eye of a philosopher, and sought to turn to some useful purpose 

 every observation which he made, in recording the reviviscence 

 of some common flies which had made a voyage from Virginia 

 to England in a bottle of Madeira wine, goes on to state that a 

 plant with its flowers fades and dies if exposed to the air with- 

 out having its roots plunged in a humid soil, from which it may 

 draw moisture to supply the waste of that which it exhales, and 

 which is continually carried off by the air. Perhaps, he adds, 

 if it were buried in quicksilver it might preserve for a consider- 

 able time its vegetable life ; and, if this be the case, it might 

 prove a commodious method of transporting from distant coun- 

 tries those delicate plants which are unable to sustain the 

 inclemency of the weather at sea. 



The ingenious suggestion of the American philosopher has 

 been happily realised in practice by Mr. Ward, in a way much 

 more simple and efficient than that which Franklin proposed. 

 By its means, the rarest and most delicate plants have been 

 transported to and from the most distant countries, with little or no 

 trouble in regard to attendance, and scarcely any risk of suffer- 

 ing from the inclemency of the weather at sea. He has thereby 

 conferred on the botanist and horticulturist benefits which no 

 researches of travellers, however successful, nor expenditure of 

 money, however great, could have enabled them otherwise to 

 procure. Instead of simple descriptions, or dried specimens, 

 or fine pictures of foreign plants, they can now fix their eyes 

 on living specimens retaining their native freshness and beauty, 

 and possessing all their natural and characteristic properties. 

 Already have exchanges of plants between distant countries 

 been carried on to a great extent ; and the public conservatories, 

 as well as those of private individuals, been enriched with speci- 

 mens of many rare plants, which could scarcely have reached 

 them by any other means. Thus, under the modified con- 

 ditions with regard to climate, and the renovating processes in 

 relation to water and air, which we have attempted to illustrate, 

 the botanist and horticulturist may be said to have entered on 

 new and unexplored fields of vegetable research, and to have 

 acquired the means of transporting to their own soil the varied 

 and most delicate plants of every region of the earth. 



