AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
£279 
ON DRYING AND PRESERVING SPECIMENS 
OF FLOWERS. 
Observing at the present season of the year 
that there are an abundance of floral specimens, 
and that information is requested by a corres¬ 
pondent on a successful mode of drying speci¬ 
mens, the following was given me by a friend, 
which for six years I have adopted with very 
satisfactory results, and forward it for insertion 
in the June Cabinet. “In selecting specimens 
for drying, care must be taken that they exhibit 
the usual character of the species; no imperfect 
or monstrous shoot should be made use of. If 
the leaves of different parts of the species vary, 
as is often the case in herbaceous plants, exam¬ 
ples of both should be preserved. The twig 
should not be more woody than is unavoidable, 
because of its not lying compactly in the herb¬ 
arium. If the flower grow from a very large 
woody part of the trunk as is often the case, 
as in some Malpighias, Cynometra, &c., then 
they should be preserved with a piece of the 
bark only adhering to them. It is also very 
important that ripe fruit should accompany the 
specimen. When the fruit is small, or thin, or 
capable of compression without injury, a second 
dried specimen may be added to that exhibiting 
the flowers ; but when it is large and woody, it 
must be preserved separately. Next to a judi¬ 
cious selection of specimens, it is important to 
dry them in the best manner. For this pur¬ 
pose various methods have been proposed; some 
of the simplest and most practicable may be 
mentioned. 
If you are in a country where there is much 
sun heat, it is an excellent plan to place the 
specimen between the leaves of a sheet of paper, 
and pour as much dry sand or earth over it as 
will press every part flat; leave it in the full sun¬ 
shine, and it will generally dry in a few hours. 
But in traveling, when conveniences of this 
kind cannot be had, and in wild uninhabited 
regions, it is better to have two or more paste¬ 
boards of the size of the paper in which your 
specimens are dried, and some stout cord or 
leather straps. Having gathered specimens 
until you are apprehensive of their shrivelling, 
fill each sheet of paper with as many as it will 
contain; and having thus 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 pa¬ 
per, and make it very dry and hot before the 
fire; into this sheet so heated, transfer the spe¬ 
cimens in the first of the paper in your pack¬ 
age ; 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 op¬ 
eration 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, he may 
dry his paper in the sun; if the number of 
specimens for preparation is inconsiderable, put 
them between cushions, in a press resembling a 
napkin press, lying it in the sun, or before a 
hot fire. It is extremely important that speci- 
ments 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 Orchidese, will fall in pieces in drying; 
when this is the case, the fragments are to be 
carefully preserved, in order to be put together 
when the specimen is finally glued down. In 
many cases, particularly those of Coniferse, 
Ericae, &e., the leaves may be prevented falling 
off by plunging the specimen, when newly 
gathered, for a minute into boiling water. 
The great object in drying a specimen is to 
preserve its color, 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. 
When specimens have been thoroughly dried, 
they should be fastened by strong glue, not 
gum, nor paste, to have a sheet of good white 
stout paper; the place where they are found, 
or the person from whom they were obtained, 
should be written at the foot of each specimen, 
and the name at the lowest right hand corner. 
If any of the flowers or fruits, or seeds, be 
loose, they should be put into small paper cases, 
which may be glued in some convenient place 
to the paper. These cases are extremely use¬ 
ful; and fragments so preserved, being well 
adapted for subsequent analysis, will often'pre- 
vent the specimen itself from being pulled in 
pieces. The best size for the paper appears, by 
experience, to be 10J inches by 16£. Linnaeus 
used a size resembling our foolscap, but it is 
much too small; and a few employ paper 11J 
inches by 18£, but that is larger than is neces¬ 
sary, and much too expensive. 
In analysing dried specimens, the flowers of 
fruits should always be softened in boiling wa¬ 
ter ; this renders all the parts pliable, and often 
restores them to their original position. In ar¬ 
ranging specimens when thus prepared, every 
species of the same genus should be put into a 
wrapper, formed of a whole sheet of paper, and 
marked at the lower left corner with the name 
of the genus. The genera should then be put 
together, according to their natural orders. To 
preserve plants against the depredations of in¬ 
sects, by which, especially the little Anobium 
castaneum, they are apt to be much infested, it 
has been recommended to wash each specimen 
with a solution of corrosive sublimate, in cam¬ 
phorated spirits of wine; but, independently of 
this being a doubtful mode of preservation, it is 
expensive, and in large collections extremely 
troublesome. I have found that suspending 
little open bags filled with camphor, in the in¬ 
side of the doors of my cabinets, is a far more 
simple and a most effectual protection. It is 
true that camphor will not drive away the 
larvae that may be carried into the herbarium 
in fresh specimens; but the moment they be¬ 
come perfect insects, they quit the cases with¬ 
out leaving any eggs behind them.”— Florists' 
Magazine. 
-• • •- 
THE FRUIT TRADE OF FRANCE. 
Paris is the very best market for the sale in 
almost unlimited quantities of every eatable in 
the shape of fruit. Many species which from 
their delicate nature seem unfitted for distant 
transportation, and yet find their way thither 
from great distances, and are freely offered to 
the consumers of the capital. They come too, 
as fresh as when first gathered, owing to their 
peculiar mode of package in baskets, in which 
they may remain forty-eight hours, and with¬ 
stand all sorts of shaking and jolting, without 
suffering any change. 
The art of packing cherries and gooseberries 
in baskets is termed, in the rustic language of 
the market gardener, ring—bagging—bagner. 
The wives and daughters of cultivators in the 
neighborhood of Paris possess this talent to re¬ 
markable perfection. Their mode of proceed¬ 
ing is in this wise : the fruit being first gath¬ 
ered in the most delicate way possible, is depos¬ 
ited in large round flat baskets, borne upon the 
head. As they are brought in, the women pack 
the fruit in other baskets of the capcity of four 
or five kilogrammes. The shape of these bas¬ 
kets is perfectly suited to their destination. 
They are made of brown willow and covered 
with its bark. They are very loosely put to¬ 
gether, so that at short distances around the 
top may be inserted small branches of chestnut 
with their foliage upon them, while the bottom 
of every basket has a thick bed of the same 
leaves. These precautions taken, the baskets 
are filled and heaped up to top of the handle. 
The ends of the branches are then folded over 
the fruit, passing them above the basket handle, 
in intertwining their extremities. The whole is 
then tied together by a few turns of large pack 
thread, and the packing is complete. A basket 
of cherries or gooseberries well bound together 
in this way can travel without any extraordi¬ 
nary precautions and without danger to the 
fruit, not only in boat and railway car, but even 
on a diligence or cart, on the roughest roads. 
After the red fruit, the kind most difficult to 
pack well is the grape. In all the communes 
which send to Paris the excellent Chasselas 
grape sold under the name of the Chasselas de 
Fontainebleau, of which Thomery is the center, 
numerous companies of women and children 
are accustomed to seek in the forests of Fon¬ 
tainebleau, Ferrieres, Sercette and Orleans, the 
fern leaves necessary for grape packing. They 
are dried with great care, after removing their 
stalks and the coarser parts, and are then kept 
ready for use. The clusters are placed in their 
leafy bed in sheets of unsized paper and then 
covered with a thick layer of leaves kept in 
place by sprigs of fresh willow. The peculiar 
elasticity of the dry fern leaves thus keeps the 
grape from every bruise. 
The process just described is hardly practised 
or known beyond the departments bordering on 
the Seine, or such as send fruits to Paris. By 
means of the complete network of railroads 
which now environ the capital, the departments 
of the south and center are put in the way of 
participating in the advantages of this rapid 
means of communication. Extensive orchards 
now newly planted will yield immense addition¬ 
al quantities of all sorts of fruit for Parisian 
consumption. Among these fruits, cherries, 
blackhearts, bigarreaus could safely reach their 
destination only by being carefully packed in the 
manner described. The cherries of the depart¬ 
ments of the South are sold in Paris at fabulous 
prices prior to the time when the environs of 
of Paris can furnish an addition to the supply. 
This may be inferred from the following figures. 
A kilogramme of cherries is sold, delivered in 
Paris for two francs, in the latter part of May. 
The retailers buy these first cherries to decorate 
rods ornamented with the braided leaves of the 
lily of the valley—every rod has six cherries 
weighing at least 3J gr. With a kilogramme 
of cherries, then, they can make fifty batons or 
rods of cherries, each selling for ten centimes. 
So from a kilogramme of cherries, the retailer 
clears full five francs from the sale of his cherry 
rods, from which is only to be made the very 
trifling deduction of the cost of the rods and 
leaves. 
The changeful climate of Paris does not allow 
regular crops of apricots to be counted upon in 
the gardens and orchards of that capital. There 
are frequently intervals of five years between 
the full crops. Paris therefore obtains this fruit, 
rare and expensive always, from the department 
of Puydedome and from 1’ Allier. The apricots 
are gathered a little before maturity, so that 
they may not decay during their transport; 
they are then packed in flat boxes, and sent by 
railroad. They arrive in good condition, ma¬ 
turing in the boxes, and are frequently kept 
some days before consumption. 
Rouen, Havre, Fecamp, and Dieppe make to 
Russia, Sweden, and Norway frequent shipments 
of apples. Each apple is wrapped in a sheet of 
grey common paper. They place the fruit thus 
treated, in large boxes containing a thousand 
each, and in order that they may not become 
bruised on the passage, the space between each 
apple is carefully filled with paper clippings, 
tightly pressed together. The best pippins, or 
Reinettes, particularly the Reinette gris or grey 
pippins, are the best for a long voyage, if care¬ 
fully treated in this way. 
The same process of packing is resorted to 
with the oranges of Portugal and Malta, the 
Baleares too, and Azores, where the whole har¬ 
vest is destined for transportation. The orange 
boxes are, however, rather smaller than those 
used for apples, as the peculiar nature of the 
fruit does not permit the confinement of so 
great a quantity in a confined space. 
The figs and dates of the East, picked in bas¬ 
kets and boxes, are the object of an immense 
trade. In the kingdom of Darfour, (Central 
Africa,) baskets of dates of a determined weight, 
supply the functions of money; a certain num¬ 
ber of baskets representing a horse, a camel, a 
coat, a bag of grain, and are thus received in 
exchange for these articles.™.Boston Transcript, 
