AND SEEDS ON SHIP-BOARD. 
81 
superfluous water be fully drained off, as luxuriant 
growth is not desirable. The earth, in fact, should 
be moist, but not wet. Another point worthy of 
attention is to associate plants of nearly equal 
rates of growth ; as, if free and slow-growing plants 
are in the same case, the former would soon mono- 
polise the light and destroy the others. This has 
happened in several instances. Where cases are 
properly filled with individuals of one species only, 
they invariably arrive in the most beautiful con- 
dition, as in several containing Norfolk Island 
pines, on which scarcely a dead or yellow leaf was 
to be seen. If the above precautions are attended 
to, if all bestowed the same care and attention in 
the packing of plants for distant voyages as Messrs. 
Loddiges and Guthrie, and when on ship-board, 
would give them the same amount of light as my 
friend Captain Mallard, failure would scarcely 
ever occur, even in voyages of the longest dura- 
tion, or through the most varying climates. 
Although plants in these cases will bear great 
variations of temperature with impunity, it does 
not follow that all plants will bear long continued 
cold. It has not unfrequently happened that cases 
full of precious plants, which have arrived at the 
Land’s End in a vigorous condition, after a voyage 
of several months, have perished from the length 
of time occupied in beating up Channel in the 
