34 PLAN OP 



ting your lectures. You Should always preserve greera> 

 in flower-pots, 'whatever you find that may be wanted in 

 a future lecture, as well as for the present one. 



Do not recommend large specimens to be preserved. 

 Large specimens are useful to authors and to the learned 

 societies. But a private collection is much more conven- 

 ient, if made up of small specimens. I would never take 

 from a large plant any thing more than is necessary to 

 present something of its habit and its essential generic 

 and specific characters. 



There are many methods prescribed for preserving 

 plants. The method given in the Botanical Dictionary 

 is a very good one, if you wish to collect in a large vyay 

 and to preserve several dozen specimens of each species. 

 But 1 would adopt the following simple method with a 

 class, where each individual preserves but a single set of 

 specimens. 



Let each student prepare a drying book in the most 

 cheap and convenient manner. An old account book, a 

 neglected or useless printed book if large, a book made of 

 newspapers sewed together in a quarto form, or of com* 

 mon wrapping paper, &c. will subserve this purpose. See 

 that the specimens are correctly labelled and put in neatly 

 between the leaves of the drying book, and pressed with a 

 weight of about 20 pounds. Let it be well understood 

 that they are to be dried by absorption with the paper. 

 For any other method of drying plants will destroy their 

 colour and make them brittle. Plants must not be wet 

 when collected ; but may be kept from withering by be- 

 ing covered with a wet cloth. 



Plants must never be in press more than two days, nor 

 more than one in damp weather, without drying the book. 

 This may be done by taking out the plants carefully and 

 spreading them on a table while the book is drying. 

 Though it is a little better to have two books, and pass 

 them from the dampened book to a dry one, then back again 

 to the former at the next change when it is dried. A 

 book is soon dried by holding it horizontally with the 

 back down near a hot fire, and letting the leaves fall down 

 singly on the side next to the fire. But the plants must 

 never be left out of the book over a few minutes. 



After the plants are sufficiently dried, they will no long- 

 OS 1 excite that sensation of coolness aod moisture to the 



