  We propose a scheme for using an unmodulated and unmeasured spin-chain as a
channel for short distance quantum communications. The state to be transmitted
is placed on one spin of the chain and received later on a distant spin with
some fidelity. We first obtain simple expressions for the fidelity of quantum
state transfer and the amount of entanglement sharable between any two sites of
an arbitrary Heisenberg ferromagnet using our scheme. We then apply this to the
realizable case of an open ended chain with nearest neighbor interactions. The
fidelity of quantum state transfer is obtained as an inverse discrete cosine
transform and as a Bessel function series. We find that in a reasonable time, a
qubit can be directly transmitted with better than classical fidelity across
the full length of chains of up to 80 spins. Moreover, the spin-chain channel
allows distillable entanglement to be shared over arbitrarily large distances.
