122 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. ^ 



ten or a dozen thicknesses of paper to absorb the moisture of the 

 fresh plant. 



5. Change the papers each day, till each plant is perfectly dry ; 

 then place the dried specimens in folios of white sized paper, with 

 the name of the species, if possible, the date of collecting and the 

 localit3^ The plants arc now ready for the Herbarium. 



6. Ilerbarium specimens are best preserved by being moistened 

 with a solution of corrosive sublimate in diluted alcohol. Having 

 been thus poisoned they are to be fastened by hot glue to single 

 sheets of thick paper. Specimens illustrating one species may be 

 attached to a single leaf; the generic and specific name being writ- 

 ten on a separate slip of paper and fastened to the right-hand lower 

 corner of the sheet. The several species of a genus are usually 

 contained in a folio of stiff paper of a color different from the single 

 sheets. 



It is advisable to collect all plants which have not been previ- 

 ously placed in the Ilerbarium, whether the names are known or 

 not. Unknown plants become, in a little while, far more interes- 

 ting to the Botanical student than those with which he is perfectly 

 familiar. Please send duplicates of all plants which the collector 

 is unable to determine, to the State Collection at Portland, where 

 they will, if possible, be gladly studied and named. 



These brief directions may aid many young botanists in Maine 

 in commencing to form Herbaria of much importance, and materially 

 advance the knowledge of the plants of our State. By the mem- 

 bers of the Survey, the Phtenogamia have been studied as thorough- 

 ly as time would allow : but much remains still to be done. 



As the names of those plants new to Maine, which have been 

 detected this season, have been already published in the Proceed- 

 ings of the Portland Society of Natural History, I shall not enu- 

 merate them in this place. The facts of botanical and agricultural 

 interest, which I noticed during the tours in the wild-lands, will 

 be given in the detailed account of those journeys through the 

 valleys of the St. John and Schoodic Rivers. There are, however, 

 one or two facts of some interest which may be as well alluded to 

 now. I refer to the occurrence of several rare plants in Western 

 Maine. While assisting in running a Geological section from 

 Mount Desert to Canada, in July, I observed in a swamp two 

 miles North-west of the hotel at Parlin Pond, and on the South side 



