AN ABBREVIATION IN BOTANIC TECHNIC. 41 



to me slowly, and that for years I had been using more man- 

 ual labor in the preparation of specimens than was necessary, 

 I have thought that others may care to know and use what 

 has been to me of great service of lightening the dead work 

 of preparing specimens. 



In preparing specimens in the climate of San Francisco, 

 the problem presented is: How to dry your driers; for with 

 an ample supply of dry, warm driers at command, the rest is 

 easy. Now the open air, the direct sunlight is, without doubt, 

 the best means one can use for this purpose; and, necessarily, 

 interior space and artificial heat are out of the question except 

 in rare cases. 



The method, then, which I adopted when I first begnn work 

 of this nature, was to spread out my driers, either on a flat 

 roof or on a porch--for I live in a crowded city— leave them 

 in the sun an hour or two and then one by one gather them 

 up, and get them into a pile for the next change. Now this 

 method had some pretty serious disadvantages. In the first 

 place, it was a good deal of work to spread the driers out; 

 secondly, it was a great deal of work to pick them up; 

 thirdly, only one side of the drier was exposed to the atmos- 

 phere, and hence it required twice the time to dry which it 

 would have taken had both sides been exposed; fourthly, m 

 the early morning, when it is often convenient to spread out 

 the driers, the last night's dew or frost has soaked the ground 

 or surface on which they are to be spread, and though the 

 sun is shining warmly, yet advantage cannot be taken of it, 

 for one must wait till the dew, frost, or moisture of any kind 

 has disappeared; fifthly, we have here a most treacherous 

 climate, especially during the early Spring collecting season 

 from January to May, when a sudden shower is of no rare 

 occurrence, and this I have found is a bad state of things to 

 dry driers in, for, having spread them out— several hundred 

 perhaps — the greater part must necessarily get pretty 

 thoroughly wetted before one can get them under shelter, for 

 the picking up of driers is a slow process; and sixthly, there 

 is the wind which, indeed, serves Well for drying purposes. 



