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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
ing that they are in themselves so beautiful, so diversified in 
then- structure and habits, and in every way so interesting and 
useful, as to render their natural history well worthy of popular 
study.* 
Before concluding, it may now be not without value if we 
give a few directions with regard to the collection and preserva- 
tion of specimens. As the forest shades, the rocks, moorlands, 
salt and fresh water, meadows, and agrarian fields, have all then’ 
graminaceous denizens, no part of a district or country should 
remain unexplored 5 the specimens when obtained should be 
placed evenly and neatly between sheets of blotting paper, or 
even in old newspapers, and then put between boards and 
pressed with straps, or with some weight. Care should be 
taken to keep the specimens of the proper size for the per- 
manent herbarium, which may be done either by cutting them 
into lengths, where too long, or by bending them. 
It is also of importance to see that the papers of one day’s 
collection are not put with those of the day previous, and so that 
three or four boards would be advisable to separate one lot from 
the other ; for it is obvious that if a fresh lot be placed along 
with those that are already partially dried, the former will com- 
municate their moisture to the latter, and then mouldiness will 
result. The permanent herbarium should consist of a portfolio, 
or of separate sheets of cartridge paper, about eighteen inches 
long, and eleven wide. 
The summer collection and arrangement of grasses cannot 
fail to impart health to the body and vigour to the mind ; and 
when winter comes, and our favourites are no longer in then- 
prime, how pleasantly our herbarium recalls our many agreeable 
rambles, and as we then look out, it may be, from the windows 
of our cheerful country-house, and behold our parks and 
meadows now brown and seared, which once were so gay with 
waving grass, we may reflect with the Psalmist : — - 
“ The days of man are but as grass, for lie fiourisheth as the 
flower of the field. 
“ For as soon as the wind goeth over it, it is gone : and the 
place thereof .shall know it no more.” 
* We recently had the pleasure of examining some large and beautiful 
collections of our wild grasses, which were made under such interesting cir- 
cumstances that we cannot forbear referring to the fact. The Messrs. Wheeler, 
seedsmen, of Gloucester, having for some time become aware of the im- 
portance of a personal acquaintance with the plants, the seeds of which they 
sold, offered prizes for competition among their commercial travellers, clerks, 
and warehousemen, for the best collection of wild grasses. The result was a 
very spirited contest, which led those engaged into scenes of beauty they 
would perhaps not otherwise have visited ; and this made them acquainted 
not only with the appearance, but also with the habits of a tribe of plants, 
the observation of which, we venture to say, is better calculated to discipline 
the mind than is that of any other group in the vegetable kingdom. 
