Rbhodora 
THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 
Vol. 20. September, 1918. No. 237 
PRESSING PLANTS WITH DOUBLE-FACED CORRUGATED 
PAPER BOARDS. 
GEORGE E. NIcHOLS AND HaARoLp Sr. JOHN. 
THE advantages to be gained by using corrugated paper boards in 
plant presses was first made widely known by Collins who, in 1910,! 
described his own experience with them, together with that of several 
other workers who independently had developed similar methods. 
Briefly outlined, the scheme originally employed by Collins was as 
follows. In building up a press, single-faced (s. f.) corrugated boards, 
i. e. boards in which one face is uncovered and ridged, the other 
covered and smooth, were substituted for the driers customarily 
employed, the specimens, enclosed only by thin specimen sheets of 
newspaper stock, being laid directly between these. After being: 
strapped up the press was suspended over a lamp, and around it was 
tied a cloth skirt, draped so as to hang nearly to the floor, and “held 
open by means of a stiff wire hoop sewed in at the lower edge.” The 
effect of the continuous current of warm air from the lamp, guided 
by the skirt and passing upward through the corrugated ventilators, 
was such that, to quote Collins (l. c., p. 222), “plants which formerly 
took a week to dry can almost invariably be perfectly dried in less 
than 24 hours, and commonly in less than 12 hours.” Furthermore, 
there was the added advantage that the bother of changing driers and 
spreading out the wet ones to dry was entirely eliminated. 
Collins experimented with various modifications of the method 
1 Collins, J. F. The use of corrugated paper boards in drying plants. Ruopora 14: 221-224. 
1910. 5 
