BOTANY. 289 
While travelling, three leathern straps with buckles should be 
procured; two to bind the boards transversely, and one longitudi- 
nally. It will be further desirable to have a number of pieces of 
pasteboard of the same size as the paper, to separate different 
portions of the collection, either such as are in different states of 
dryness, or such as by their bulk might otherwise press upon and 
injure the more delicate kinds. 
Thus provided, gather your specimens, selecting always such as 
are in flower, and others in a more or less advanced state of fruit. 
Place them side by side, but never one upon another, on the 
same sheet, and lay upon them one, two, or three sheets, according 
to the thickness of the plants, or their more or less succulent nature: 
and so on, layer above layer of paper and specimens, subjecting them 
then to pressure. 
As soon as you find that the paper has absorbed a considerable 
portion of the moisture (which will be according to the more or less 
succulent nature of the plants and the heat or dryness of the season 
or climate), remove the plants into fresh papers, and let the old 
papers be dried for use again, either in the open air or sun, or ina 
heated room, or before the fire. 
As to the spreading out of the leaves and flowers with small 
weights, penny-pieces, etc., it is quite needless. The leaves and 
flowers are best displayed by nature in the state in which you 
gather them, and they will require little or no assistance with the 
hand, when laid out upon papers, to appear to the best advantage, 
especially if put in carefully on being fresh gathered. 
If the specimens cannot be laid down immediately on being 
gathered, they should be preserved in a tin box. 
In many cases the traveller will find the process accelerated by 
exposing the parcel (hung up and properly secured) to the open air 
when the weather is favourable, and the circulation of air through 
it will be promoted if the sheets on which the specimens are laid 
be placed alternately back and edge. Four or five shiftings will 
generally be sufficient to complete the process, which is ascertained 
by the stiffness of the stems and leaves, and by the specimens not 
shrinking when removed. They should then be placed between 
dry papers (such as ordinary newspaper), and formed into parcels 
of moderate thickness, and either packed in boxes or well secured 
as parcels covered with oil-cloth. 
The greater number of cryptogamic plants may be dried in the 
common way, such mosses as grow in tufts being separated by the 
hand. But both mosses and lichens, as they can at any future time 
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