234 FLORA OF WASHINGTON AND VICINITY. 



size by baviug the whole package, boards, papers, and all, considerably- 

 narrower. Few single specimens are more than 9 or 9^ inches wide, but 

 most packages are made 11 or 12 inches wide; this saving of two or 

 three inches in width is very considerable, and works in all cases quite 

 as well. 



The next plant on the list of desiderata is then found, taken out, and 

 labeled in the same manner, and so on until the list is exhausted. If 

 at any time you take out the last duplicate you have, do not fail to 

 strike it oft' your list of duplicates, and if you have two such list s strike 

 it from both. The law forbids the sending of labels of which any part 

 is written, as third-class-matter, and it is necessary to give each label a 

 temporary number and put with the specimen a corresponding printed 

 figure (cut out of a calendar), and to send the labels in a letter. Eather 

 than do this I generally patronize the express comjjanies wherever my 

 correspondents are near one of their stations. A very sensible decision 

 was made by Postmaster- General Key that scientific labels, bills of lad- 

 ing, etc., if they contained nothing irrelevant, might pass with the speci- 

 mens. This ruling has since been reversed as not in harmony with the 

 spirit of the law.* There are cases where large packages have to go 

 short distances, when it is more economical to send them by express. 



A package to be sent by mail or by express should be securelj^ done 

 up. The plants are first placed between two paste-boards of uniform size 

 and tied up with a string around the middle and each end ; then a piece 

 of heavy wrapping-paper, large enough to envelop it entirely, is put 

 around the i^ackage in a systematic manner, drawn firmly up laterally, 

 the ends neatly turned back, and the whole securely bound with strong 

 twine. The twine should be in one piece and go first round the middle, 

 then round each end, then round the middle endwise, and perhaps also 

 three times round in this manner, once near each edge of the package. 

 Each time that the cord crosses another it should have a turn round it, 

 and each time it completes a circuit be secured in the approved manner. 

 These directions are imj^ortant in view of the fact that the least move- 

 ment of the specimens in the package works their immediate ruin. 



* As much doubt and uncertainty still exists ou this point, I will yay for the benefit 

 of all concerned, that I called personally at the Post-Offico Department (December 6, 

 1831), and Avas 'officially assured of the correctness of the statements herein made. It 

 is, however, a great inconvenience to all branches of science, and operates against the 

 Department and in the interest of the express companies. An earnest representation 

 of the subject on the part of the large scientific bodies of the country would doubt- 

 less secure the amendment by Congress of the act in question, and this should be done. 



