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DIRECTIONS FOR DRYING AND PRESERVING PLANTS. xvil 
PRESSES. 
1. The press already described, consisting of two pieces of boards of the 
size of the driers, with a stone or any convenient heavy body for a weight, 
is the most simple. 
2. A press with a screw to apply force is in common use, and has its 
advantages on account of its completeness. 
3. Two pieces of binder’s boards, with muslin glued on them and tlie 
whole varnished with shellac varnish, and fastened together with straps, 
are sometimes used, and are convenient, because they are light and may 
be carried into the field. 
4, Messrs. Barnes & Co., of New York City, keep for sale a complete 
apparatus for collecting and drying. Their press has sides of wire gauze, 
which possesses the advantage of allowing drying to go on more freely 
than any other press. Prof. Wood is the inventor of this press. 
SIZE OF PLANTS. 
When a plant is too large to lay upon the paper, it may be bent, but in 
no case should it be cut. Of large plants, such as shrubs and trees, a 
branch may be obtained containing good specimens of leaves, flowers, and 
Fruit, if possible. In collecting herbaceous plants, those of medium size 
should be obtained. The author has been in the habit of collecting, so 
far as practicable, all the forms of a plant, from the overgrown speci- 
men to the dwarf. 
PRESERVING PLANTS. * 
Having dried and labeled a number of plants, white paper of a fair 
substance may be obtained and cut to the size of the driers; then the 
specimens may be fastened to the sheets in any of the following ways. 
They may be stitched on with cotton thread, or a litile glue may be 
touched to the leaves, and parts of the stem, and thus fastened to the 
paper. A very neat way of doing it is to dissolve Gum Arabic to the con- 
sistency of cream, and put into a gill of the solution a lump of rock-candy 
as large as a hickory-nut. When the whole is perfectly dissolved, spread 
it with a camel’s-hair brush over common writing paper (having first laid 
the paper smoothly on a table), and allow it to dry. Continue to put on 
coat after coat, until it presents a smooth, glossy surface ; when dry, it is 
fit for use. After having placed the plant as it is to lie on the paper, cut 
into narrow strips the gummed paper, and after wetting it in your mouth, 
lay it across the stem and parts that you wish to secure to the paper. 
The label may be written upon this gummed paper, and laid over some part 
of the stem, and will aid in holding the plant to the paper ; in this case 
two specimens should be preserved so as to show both sides of the leaf. 
To preserve specimens from the depredations of insects, make a satu- 
rated solution of corrosive sublimate, in absolute alcohol, then add an 
equal bulk of water, and with this solution wet the parts of the plants 
attacked, 
