(R3printed, without change of paging, from Rhodora, Journal of the New 

 England Botanical Club, vol. 20 (1918).] 



PRESSING PLANTS WITH DOUBLE-FACED CORRUGATED 

 P.APER BOARDS. 



George E. Nichols and Harold St. 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 (/. 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. Rhodora 14: 221-224. 

 1910. 



