Each plant, as it is put into the press, should he irfAhf^td as 

 it is to lie on the herbarium sheet. In the case of lat^g-^- piants, 

 one specimen will suffice for a page, but of small "oiies it is 

 well to press several on the same sheet, takif/g care that the 

 plants clo' no overlap one another. It was formerly thought 

 necessary to carefully spread out every leaf as the plants were 

 put in prcs's, but a certain amount of negligence here is rather 

 to be commended, sir.ce if all the leaves are so carefully spread, 

 it may be difficult to study the under surfaces of any of them 

 when the specimen is n^ounted. On this point, therefore, the 

 advice is,, Be careful, but not too careful. 



SECOND PAPER— DRYING. 



FTER a day in the field the collector may return much 

 fatigued, but if he would have good specimens no 

 time should be lost in getting his plants into the d: \ - 

 ing-press. To allow them to remain in the collecting- 



press for any length of time is to run the risk of making in- 

 ferior specimens. The drying-press being designed to re- 

 move the moisture from the plants, it follows that the press 

 which will do this with the least expenditure of time and la- 

 bor on the part of the collector is to be preferred. The form 

 most commonly used js essentially lil^e the collecting-press, 

 except that it contains sheets of thick, bibulous paper instead 

 of the thin collecting sheets. It may be remarked here, that 

 since the object is to rapidly absorb the moistui:e, any bibulous 

 paper, such as blotting paper or pads made of pld newspapers, 

 will do; but the kind favored by botanists is the material sold 

 in the shops under the narne of "deadenirig felt" or "felt 

 paper," and used by house-builders for a variety of purposes. 

 It is placed on the market in rolls, each of which contains a 

 strip 150 feet long and three feet wide and costs about $1.50. 

 Any large paper or hardware store should have it. The driers 

 should be 12 by 18 inches in size. The roll cuts, to this size 

 without waste, giving three hundred driers, which will usu- 

 ally be found sufficient for drying the plants collected about 

 home. 



When the driers are ready for the plants, the collecting- 



