Vol, VI, No. 45.] BULLETIN OF THE TorREY BoTANicat Cuus. [New York, Sept., 1878. 
§ 254. Some Rambling Notes on Collecting and Preserving 
Herbarium Specimens. 
IV. Drying Specimens.—In these notes we have endeavored to 
follow, in a measure, the mythical Mrs. Glasse’ s celebrated recipe 
for cooking a hare :—‘‘ First catch your hare.” We have collected 
our specimens, or, in other words, attempted to show how. they 
should be collected properly, and now the next thing is to prepare 
them for the herbarium, the chief requisite being to extract the 
moisture as rapidly as possible from the green plant. 
There are two principal methods in use among botanists for dry- 
ing plants,—the first, which is the one usually followed, is by absorp- 
tion, where pressure is used and change of driers (drying ‘paper) i is nec- 
essary. The other mode, which is of more recent introduction, is by 
evaporation; the wire-netting press containing the specimens is hung 
in the open air; the drying being done through the agency of the 
sun and wind, no changing of driers being required until the plants 
are cured. 
Which is the better of the two methods is open to considerable 
difference of opinion. The latter mode is very simple and demands 
much less labor than the other after the plants are once in press ; 
while with the other to dry the specimens properly demands assidi- 
ous care and attention during the whole time they are pressing. 
The wére-press will probably answer a very good purpose for those 
who wish to collect in a small way as they travel, but as most botan- 
ists like to collect extensively, this press seems hardly adequate to 
the demands likely to be made upon it, particularly on such occa- 
sions as frequently occur to the writer, and perhaps to most botanists, 
when, returning home from a several days, collecting trip, he finds a 
thousand or more specimens in his box and portfolio clamoring for 
immediate attention. 
In regard to the quality of work turned out by this press, my 
experience has not been entirely satisfactory. My specimens have 
generally shrivelled more or less, and the quality has usually been 
not above second-rate. I tried it faithfully for part of one season, 
along with my other presses, and then abandoned the evaporating 
process. Feelingmy disappointment keenly, as my expectations had 
been considerably raised, I may possibly have discarded it too soon ; 
for my ill-success may be owing to not having mastered fully certain 
details, the knowledge of which, however simple, is necessary to the 
working of every system, But I understand that the experience of 
a few others coincides with my own, and it is also fair to state that 
I have never seen specimens, even when dried by the warmest advo- 
cates of the wire-press, equal in quality to those preserved by the 
other method. 
While the personal experience of the writer is decidedly in favor 
of the old-fashioned press, as his evaporation friends term it, let it be 
not inferred that he has any hobby to ride in this matter. He has 
no sincerer wish than to see his favorite science a popular study with 
his young contemporaries, and no more cherished purpose in these 
notes than to clear up and make even, a little, the road that leads to 
the portal of this caAene department of natural science. 
