COLLECTING AND PRESERVING. 183 



hours, after which time it must be opened, and if the flowers 

 be sufficiently smoked they will appear white, if not, they must 

 be smoked again. When sufficiently smoked, take the flowers 

 out carefully and hang them up in a dry, airy place in the 

 shade, and in a few days or even hours they will recover their 

 natural color, except being only a shade paler. 



To give them a very bright and shining color, plunge them 

 into a mixture of 10 parts of cold water and 1 of good nitric 

 acid ; drain off the liquid, and hang them up again the same as 

 before. The best flowers for this process are asters, roses, 

 fuchsias (single ones), spireas (red-flowered kinds, such as 

 callosa, Douglasi, etc.), ranunculus, delphiniums, cytisus, etc. 

 The roses should be quite open, but not too fully blown. 



6. In Sand. (Quin.) Dry the plants in clean silver sand, 

 free from organic matter (made so by repeated washing, until 

 the sand ceases to discolor the water) . Heat the sand rather hot, 

 and mix with it by constant stirring with a small piece of wax 

 candle, which prevents the sand from adhering to the flowers. 

 Have a box not higher than 3 inches, but as broad as possible ; 

 this box should have instead of a bottom a narrow-meshed iron- 

 wire net at a distance of f inch from where the bottom should 

 be. Place the box on a board and fill with sand till the net is 

 just covered with a thin layer of sand ; upon this layer of sand 

 place a layer of flowers, on that a layer of sand, then flowers, 

 and so on ; the layers of sand should vary in thickness accord- 

 ing to the kind of flowers, from inch to ^ inch. 



When the box contains about three layers of flowers, it must 

 be removed to a very sunny dry place, the best being close 

 under the glass in an empty greenhouse, exposed to the full 

 influence of the sun. After a week, if the weather is sunny 

 and dry, the flowers will be perfectly dried ; then the box is 

 lifted a little, the sand falls gently through the iron net, and the 

 flowers remain in their position over the net without any dis- 

 turbance whatever. 



They should then be taken out carefully and kept in a dry 

 and, if possible, dark place, where no sun can reach them, and 

 afterwards they will keep very well for many years. 



