OF PROPAGATION BY EYES AND KNAUBS. 183 



the papers themselves veiy loosely in coarse canvass 

 bags, not enclosed in boxes, but freely exposed to the 

 air ; and to insure their transmission in some dry 

 well-ventilated place. Thus, if the seeds are origi- 

 nally dried incompletely, they will become further 

 dried on their passage ; if the seed paper is damp, as 

 it almost always is, the moisture will fly off through 

 the sides of the bags, and will not stagnate around the 

 seeds. It is true that, under such circumstances, the 

 seeds will be exposed to the fluctuations of tempera- 

 ture, and to the influence of the atmosphere ; but nei- 

 ther the one nor the other of these is likely to be pro- 

 ductive of injury to the germinatifig principle. The 

 excellence of this method I can attest from my own 

 observation. Large quantities of seeds have been 

 annually transmitted from India for many years, 

 doubtless gathered with care, it is to be presumed 

 prepared with every attention to the preservation of 

 the vital principle, and certainly packed with all those 

 precautions which have been erroneously supposed 

 to be advantageous ; the hopelessness of raising plants 

 from such seeds has at length become so apparent, 

 that many persons have altogether abandoned the 

 attempt, and will not take the trouble to sow them 

 when they arrive. But the seeds sent from India by 

 Dr. Falconer, packed in the manner last described, ex- 

 posed to all the accidents which those first mentioned 

 can have encountered, have germinated so well, that 

 we can scarcely say that the failure has been greater 

 than if they had been collected in the south of Europe. 

 I have no doubt that the general badness of the 



