LABORATORIES AND THEIR EQUIPMENT 93 



revenue, its place must be taken by annual grants 

 from the school committees, and the teacher should 

 insist upon that sum or as near it as possible. The 

 materials to be collected in summer (unless for the 

 herbarium) are best preserved in glass preserve jars in 

 water to which two per cent of formaline (also called 

 formaldehyd and formalose) has been added ; this 

 will perfectly preserve all vegetable tissues, but since 

 its fumes irritate the eyes and throat, the materials 

 should be well washed in water just before they are 

 used. It is well in the spring to go through the out- 

 lines for the next year's work and list the mate- 

 rials needed, as a guide for the summer collecting. 

 Pressed flowers are sometimes recommended for 

 study, but they are difficult for and repellent to the 

 beginner, who should have fresh ones only. 



The charts, museum specimens, and other desirable 

 illustrative parts of a laboratory equipment are dis- 

 cussed in the next chapter (Chapter VI). 



The only firm in the United States which professes 

 to deal exclusively in botanical supplies, and as well 

 to supply everything needed by botanists, is the Cam- 

 bridge Botanical Supply Company, of Cambridge, 

 Mass. A new firm, the Ithaca Botanical Supply 

 Company, Ithaca, N.Y., has lately been organized. 

 The Knott Scientific Apparatus Company, of Boston, 

 Williams, Brown, and Earle, of Philadelphia, Richard 

 Kny and Company, of New York, all deal in smaller 



