of Edinhimjh, Session 1880-81. xlv 



Being now provided with your apparatus, pile up tlie sheets that 

 contain the plants and the requisite pads of Centall, till you have 

 as many as a pair of straps will contain. In laying in the plants, 

 keep the roots and thick parts outwards, and to flatten them insert 

 here and there a mill-board. Then open a pair of straps upon the 

 table, place a deal board with its cross-grain downwards upon them, 

 yoiu' pile of plants on the board, and the fellow board on the top of 

 it with the cross-gi'ain upwards, and buckle it up as tight as you 

 can, and put it under a heavy weight. In Germany a napkin-press 

 is much used, but it is necessary to be very careful, or the stems 

 and fruits and tender flowers may be crushed, I found a steel 

 press of great service. It is made of two bars 12 inches long, 

 2 inches broad, and 3-eighths thick, with square holes at the ends 

 through which pass two upright screws about 2 feet long, with 

 nuts to i^ress down the upper bar, and a key to turn them. After 

 you have strapped up yoiu- bundle, place it in this press, and screw 

 down the top bar upon it as tight as you safely can without injmy 

 to the plants, then draw up the straps and buckle them, and take 

 ofi" the press to use it for another bundle. 



A weight press may be extemporized anywhere. You may heave 

 up your bedstead and put your plants under the frame ; or a blanket 

 chest, or a kitchen dresser. Or you may get an empty box, or 

 hamper, or sack, and fill it with stones, or sand ; or build up books, 

 or bricks, or stones upon them. To make a still heavier press, fix 

 the end of a long joist, or pole, or ladder into a hole in a wall, or 

 under a grate, or anything that will hold it, and set your bundle of 

 plants under it, near the fixed end, and suspend a heavy weight 

 from the other, to act as on a steelyard. The heavier the pressure, 

 the quicker the plants diy ; and so long as you use plenty of 

 Bentall, you need not be afraid of crusliing them. It is diflicult to 

 convince ladies of the weight that is necessary, and of the time and 

 labour they waste through their incredulity. They most of them 

 think 20 lbs. an enormous weight. 



On the morrow remove the damp pads, and shift the sheets of 

 whitey-brown with the plants they contain, to dry ones, and do this 

 daily till your specimens no longer stick to the paper. In strapping 

 them up, be sure to keep the cross-grain or the mill-board side of 

 your boards outwards, or they will split. The poplar ones are apt 

 to become rounded with use, but this is of no great consequence. 

 It is the best wood on which to glue the mill-board, as being less 

 likely to split than deal, and less subject to insects than lime and other 

 light woods, and it is easily obtained in most continental countries. 



