PURPOSE: To eliminate the occurrence of confusion without damaging rods by raising a table and inserting a nozzle tip to the vicinity of a box bottom, by causing the rods to flow down while moving the table crosswise and by lowering the table stepwise.

CONSTITUTION: Rods P are continuously supplied by a feeding belt 3 from a preceding process and successively supplied to a hopper 6 due to falling by their own weight by a flat belt 4 in the upper part of the hopper 6. When an empty box is transferred to the central part of a box-packing station S1 by a table 16, the empty box is raised by the rise of the table 16. Subsequently, at the point of time when the tip of a nozzle 12 approaches the bottom of the box, the rise of the table 16 is stopped once and the table 16 is moved until the nozzle 12 hits against the end wall of the empty box. Then, when opening and closing of a shutter at the tip of the nozzle 12, the lateral movement of the box caused by the travel along the X-axis of the table 16 and stepwise lowering of the box are combined with each other, the rods P can be packed into the box without any confusion.