CHOICE AND USE OF APPARATUS 



efforts, at anyrate, will quickly dull the cutting 

 edge and there is no advantage in going to much 

 expense in this direction. 



To cut really good sections is not difficult, it is 

 a question of knack rather than skill; having once 

 acquired the knack, practice will do the rest. The 

 great point is to begin properly, some people never 

 take the necessary trouble in their early days and, 

 as a consequence, they never learn to cut good 

 sections. 



There is nothing mysterious about the operation, 

 a section is merely a very thin slice. A good section 

 for examination under the microscope should, of 

 course, be so thin that it is transparent; it should 

 be equally thin everywhere, not thick in some places 

 and thin in others and it should be cut in the 

 proper direction. The last statement requires a 

 little explanation; suppose we wish to make a 

 section straight across a stem, a transverse section 

 it would be called, then we must see to it that our 

 section is cut straight across, and not in such a 

 manner that the portion from which the section is 

 cut tapers in the slightest degree. Before we begin 

 the actual section cutting we must always trim up 

 our specimen with one of the dissecting knives and 

 not attempt to make the surface level with the 

 razor. As a start, let us take some moderately 

 fleshy plant stem for we shall find it as easy to 

 cut as anything. Our stem must not be woody, 

 for till we have had a fair amount of practice we 

 shall damage our razor on its hard structures; it 



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