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294
NOTES OF A BOTANIST
Ventanas (which appears so short on the map) had
taken him thirteen days to travel. He finally
reached Limon on the 2/th of July, looking pale
and thin from his recent illness and from the
sleepless nights passed on the river, but anxious to
set to work immediately. We had no young
plants for him, nor any expectation of obtaining
them, but I was satisfied that cuttings \vould
succeed, although it would necessarily
be a tedious
process to root them well. The owner of the
chacra of Oso-cahuitu showed me some sprigs, cut
from an old stool of Red Bark, which he had stuck
into the ground by a watercourse four months previously,
and they had all rooted well. Mr. Cross
also agreed with me that the success of the process
was certain, and that the question was merely one
of time, which only experience could solve. After
reposing the following day (Sunday), we had a
piece of ground fenced in, and Mr. Cross made a
pit, and prepared the soil to receive the cuttings,
of which he put in above a thousand on the ist of
August and following days. He afterwards put in
a great many more, subjecting them to various
he went round to all the
modes of treatment ;
and
old stools, and put in as many layers from them as
possible ; but
only those who have attempted to do
anything in the forest, possessing scarcely any of
the necessary appliances, and obliged to supply
them as far as possible from the forest itself, can
have any idea of the difficulties to be surmounted.
Glass was the only thing for which we could find
no substitute, and to get up to Limon the glasses
of the Wardian cases wr as not to be thought of,
over roads so narrow and rough, where even the