264 PACKING BULBS. 



quickly as new seed. This is a new fact, and if further 

 experiments confirm Mr. M'Gall's experience, it may possibly 

 be found that the best place for seeds on board ships bound to 

 distant countries, is, as Sir William Eeid suggested at the time, 

 in bottles plunged in ship's tanks, where they may be exposed 

 to a more uniform temperature than can be otherwise secured. 



It must not be supposed from anything now said, that the 

 conditions on which the preservation of seminal vitality 

 appears to depend, are also such as in all cases govern the 

 preservation of the life of perfect plants or their parts while 

 torpid. The reverse is the fact ; for as a general rule that 

 dryness and exposure to air, which is favourable to seed, is 

 prejudicial to the vitality of perfect plants, if too much 

 prolonged. 



No perfect state of a plant approaches the seed so nearly as 

 the Bulb, for like a seed, it consists of a vital point, sur- 

 rounded by a soft mass of tissue, which parts with its 

 moisture slowly, in part in consequence of the obstacles 

 offered to evaporation by the membranes that invest it, and 

 in part by reason of the thickness of the sides of the cells 

 of which its tissue consists. The precautions demanded in 

 packing bulbs for long voyages are therefore much like those 

 of seeds ; except that bulbs will not bear dryness for a very 

 considerable length of time. Two years form probably the 

 longest period during which we have certain information that 

 bulbs have been preserved in a torpid state. 



We find, the following report on this subject in the Journal of the 

 Horticultural Society, vol. I. p. 79. Bulbs, experimentally prepared for 

 a voyage to England, were received from India by the Court of Directors 

 of the East India Company, and sent to the Garden for examination. 

 One half of the bulbs were simply wrapped in cotton and packed in 

 brown paper, while the other portion (of the same kinds of bulbs) was 

 encrusted in a kind of white wax, and covered with cotton like the 

 others. When received at the Garden, in. June, 1844, those bulbs 

 which were simply packed in cotton and brown paper had emitted 

 roots on the journey, and the tops in most cases had grown consider- 

 ably, while those coated with wax remained quite firm and as fresh as 

 when first packed ; although, according to the statement on the out- 



