CHAP. VI. 
OF HERBARIA. 
539 
formed a good stout bundle, place it between the pasteboards, 
and compress it with your cord or straps. In the evening, or 
at the first convenient opportunity, unstrap the package, take 
a fresh sheet of paper, and make it very dry and hot before a 
fire; into the sheet, so heated, transfer the specimens from the 
first sheet of paper in your package ; then dry that sheet, and 
shift into it the specimens lying in the second sheet; and so 
go on, till all your specimens are shifted ; then strap up the 
package anew, and repeat the operation at every convenient 
opportunity, till the plants are dry. They should then be 
transferred to fresh paper, tied up rather loosely, and laid by. 
Should the Botanist be stationary, or in any civilised country, 
he may dry his paper in the sun ; or, if the number of speci- 
mens he has to prepare is inconsiderable, he may simply put 
them between cushions in a press resembling a napkin-press, 
laying it in the sun, or before a hot fire. It is extremely im- 
portant that specimens should be dried quickly, otherwise 
they are apt to become mouldy and rotten, or black, and to 
fall in pieces. Notwithstanding all the precautions that can 
be taken, some plants, such as Orchidacege, will fall in pieces 
in drying ; when this is the case, the fragments are to be care- 
fully preserved, in order that they may be put together when 
the specimen is finally glued down. In many cases, particu- 
larly those of Coniferae, Ericae, &c., the leaves may be pre- 
vented falling off by plunging the specimen, when newly 
gathered, for a minute into boiling w^ater. The great objects 
in drying a specimen are, to preserve its colour, if possible, 
which is not often the case, and not to press it so flat as to 
crush any of the parts, because that renders it impossible 
subsequently to analyse them. 
Specimens of wood should be truncheons, five or six inches 
long, and three or four inches in diameter, if the plant grows 
so much. They should be planed smooth at each extremity, 
but neither varnished nor polished. 
Specimens of fruits simply require to be dried in the sun. 
When specimens shall have been thoroughly dried, they 
should be fastened by strong glue, not gum nor paste, to 
half-sheets of good stout white paper : the place where they 
were found, or person from whom they were obtained, should 
