Collecting and Preserving. 163 



Preserving and Printing of Flowers and Fruits, continued. 

 in a small flat basin, kindle and put through the opening in the 

 bottom of the chest and shut the bar. Leave the chest undis- 

 turbed for twenty-four hours, after which time it must be 

 opened, and if the flowers be sufficiently smoked they will ap- 

 pear white ; if not they must be smoked again. When suf- 

 ficiently 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 i 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), spiraeas (red-flowered kinds, such as cal- 

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

 The roses ought to 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 high, 

 and mix with it by constant stirring a small piece of compo- 

 site 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 % inches 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 according to the kind of flowers, from 

 Y% inch to X 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 



