18 WILD FLOWER PRESERVATION 



lections into the most delightful of posses- 

 sions ! 



Some of you may be even yet at school and 

 fired with a desire to make the school herba- 

 rium "a thing of beauty and a joy forever," 

 instead of a dismal cemetery of departed love- 

 liness as it too often is! I hope I shall be 

 able to help you girls and boys to realize your 

 wish. 



But Wild Flower Preservation has not been 

 written for the professional botanist or the 

 lordly being who knows quite well that plants 

 cannot be pressed successfully; so if you are 

 that type of soured or learned person let me 

 implore you to put the book down at once ! It 

 will not interest you. 



Now it is very easy for students to dream 

 dreams of wonderful herbaria and of glorious 

 mementoes of wild-flower land. You must re- 

 member that preserving wild flowers is an art 

 and not the incidental and haphazard per- 

 formance that many people have supposed. 

 Flicking flowers into a book for preservation 

 or rapidly tucking them between the sheets 

 of a blotting and newspaper bed bear just 



