198 Instructions for Packing living Plants in Foreign 



produce of capsules sent home in moss or in mould. Of the 

 many packets received in a dry state, in paper, scarcely any 

 could be made to vegetate. Palms too are better sent in this 

 way than in bags or paper. 



The plants in all cases, if possible, should have numbers 

 punched upon small pieces of thin sheet lead, and fastened 

 round the subjects to which they belong with fine iron or 

 copper wire. When such lead is not to be procured, little 

 wooden tallies should be used instead ; always, however, tied 

 round the stem or a branch of the plant, and never stuck into 

 the mould in which it is planted. Paper or parchment tickets 

 ought on no account to be used. Corresponding with these 

 numbers, lists should be prepared in which the names, lo- 

 calities, principal features of the plants, and particularly the 

 elevation above the sea at which they were collected, should 

 be fully stated ; their vernacular names ought moreover to be 

 ascertained, when they have any. 



Among the cases received by the Society this year from its 

 numerous contributors, were four transmitted by his Excel- 

 lency Sir Robert Farquhar, from the Mauritius. They 

 were a kind of portable green-house, constructed in a very su- 

 perior manner to any I have seen elsewhere. It is therefore 

 presumed that an accurate plan and description of them, with 

 such slight alterations as have appeared to be requisite, can- 

 not be otherwise than acceptable. The plants they contained 

 arrived in this country in much better condition than any re- 

 ceived by the Society in the same year. 



