1U2 



Method of transporting Exotic Plants. 



secured in its place by sorews, and may be removed at pleasure, but it 

 should be made to close the box accurately as long; as the voyage 

 lasts, i'or this perfect air-tighlness of the apparatus is essential to 

 success. The frames are divided into compartments for glazing by 

 bars, half an inch broad, and \h to 2 inches apart, the glass being in 

 small pieces, very thick, and closely joined together with mastic at the 

 overlaps. 



To prepare this chest, the moveable light is taken out, and the 

 bottom of the box covered to a depth of half an inch or more, with 

 moistened, well-tempered clayey earth, hard beat down, but not de- 

 cidedly wet. On this substratum is laid earth of a good quality*, 

 neither too sliiF or too light, bat well mixed. The plants are placed 

 in this soil, some with their roots naked, others having a clod of their 

 native soil attached, which clod should be bound up in dry moss with 

 bass or packthread, and some in pots buried in the earth. 



Thus arranged and left to themselves, the plants secured from 

 drought or humidity, will travel for long periods, undergoing changes 

 of latitude and climate, without being sensibly affected in their health. 

 They are, in fact, in a torpid state during the voyage, and their nutri- 

 tion and exhalations seem to be equal, respiration continues, and the 

 herbaceous parts preserve their colour, but they do not sensibly in- 

 crease in size. 



For some years past, interchanges of plants made on this plan be- 

 tween Calcutta and London, have succeeded beyond all hopes. The 

 Messrs. Loddiges, who possess at Hackney the richest nursery in 

 Europe, are continually sending out to New^ Holland, Van Diemen's 

 Land, the East Indies, &c., empty boxes of this description, which 

 are returned to them full. The administration of the Museum de 

 VHistoire Naturelle has just received, for the first time, one of these 

 chests, for which it is indebted to the enlightened courtesy of Dr. 

 Wallich, director of the botanic garden at Calcutta. This box con- 

 taincd^fifleen precious species, which hardly appeared more exhaust- 

 ed than the plants taken out of our frames on the return of summer, 

 and yet the voyage must have lasted eight or nine months. The ad- 

 ministration sent Dr. Wallich, in return, in a box made on the same 

 plan, plants from the south of Europe, 'and from the hot regions of 

 America; and, following the example of the Jardin du Roi, the family 

 Cels, whose hereditary zeal for the introduction of exotic plants into 

 France is knov/n to all the world, has also forwarded another case to 

 Dr. Wallich similarly furnished. — Magazine of Popular Science, 8fc. 



* It should be peat or bog eartli.— f^aV/or.^ 



