76 THE CONVEYANCE OF PLANTS 
of ground, which in wheat would maintain only 
two persons, would afford support under the 
banana to fifty ; although in that favoured region 
the return of wheat is never under seventy, and 
sometimes as much as a hundred-fold. When 
compared with potatoes, the banana affords forty 
times as much food. 
One or two more instances will suffice — 
Mr. Fortune was sent to China by the Horti- 
cultural Society, and has given us the compara- 
tive results of the old and new methods of 
conveying plants in the second edition of his 
“ Wanderings in China.” Mr. Fortune tells us 
that according to a statement published by Mr. 
Livingstone in 1818, in the “ Transactions of the 
Horticultural Society,” one plant only in a thou- 
sand survived the voyage from China to England. 
Mr. Fortune planted two hundred and fifty spe- 
cies in the cases in China, and landed two hundred 
and fifteen in perfect health.* 
Very recently, Mr. Fortune paid a second visit 
to China, having been dispatched there by the 
Honourable East India Company for the purpose 
of procuring the different varieties of tea-plants 
for their possessions in the Himalayas. The fol- 
* His Excellency Sir W. Reid, whilst Governor of Bermuda, 
made use of small portable cases, for the purpose of the interchange of 
plants, and with unvarying success. 
