Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.2): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

VEGETABLES FRUIT — TREES. 259 grew large, though watery ; but it was easy to see that justice had not been done to them, whole potatoes having been put into holes and left to take their chance, upon a soil by no means so suitable for them as might have been found. Planted even in this rough way, Mr. Bynoe collected three pounds weight of potatoes from one root. By proper management, I think that they, as well as turnips, carrots, cabbage, lettuce, and other esculent plants, might be brought to great perfec- tion, particularly on sheltered banks sloping towards the north-east. The turnips which I saw and tasted were large and well-flavoured : the largest seen there weighed eight povmds and a-half. Flax has been tried in a garden, and suc- ceeded. Mr. Bynoe saw some of it. Hemp has never yet been tried. Currant bushes (ribes antartica) have been transported from Tierra del Fuego, and tried near the settlement, but their fruit did not ripen properly. It ought, however, to be remembered that those currants are wild, a bad sort of black currant, and that when ripe in Tierra del Fuego they are scarcely eatable. We read in Bougainville and Wallis, that thousands of young trees were taken up by the roots in the Strait of Magalhaens, and carried to the Falkland Islands ; but no traces of them are now visible either at Port Egmont or Port Louis. Perhaps they were taken out of their native soil at an improper period, exposed to frost or salt water, while their roots were uncovered, and afterwards planted by men who knew more of the main brace than of gardening. Bougainville, however, had industrious ' families Acadiennes' with him, under whose care the young trees ought to have fared better than under the charge of Wallis's boatswain. Mr. Brisbane told me that he had brought over some young trees from Tierra del Fuego for Mr. Vernet ; that some had died, but others (which he showed me) were growing well in his garden. From the opinions I have collected on the subject, and from what has been effiected on waste lands, downs, and exposed hills in England and Scotland, by planting thousands at once instead of tens, I have no doubt whatever that trees may be