262 
THE LADIES ’ FLORAL CABINET. 
“‘Now, men! now is your time” says the veteran 
Prescot, “ make ready ! take aim, fire ! ’ ” 
“ Don’t shout so, Aristarchus,” 1 I pleaded, “you will 
rouse the neighbors.” • 
But Leander had heard his father and took up the 
refrain, yelling out “ fire ! fire ! fire!” as only a boy can 
yell! I rushed across the hall to Leander’s room and 
sternly ordered him to be quiet and not to let me hear 
another word from him. But by this time Miranda 
Dorothea had chimed in, “ fire ! fire !” with her shrill 
treble and I flew to silence her. I had barely got my 
troublesome family quieted, the lights out, andallin bed, 
when we heard a great commotion outside. 
“Something unusual is going on outside,” I remarked. 
“It’s the deluge!” ejaculated Aristai’chus, springing 
wildly out of bed and shaking himself like a dog just 
come out of the river, and I followed without needless 
delay. A window near the head of our bed was open, 
and through it was pouring a steady stream of cold 
water from some unfriendly souice. Before we could 
investigate the matter or get into dry clothes, a violent 
ringing of the door-bell was heard, and a sound as of 
smashing glass and a tramping of feet in the rooms 
below. Leander was shouting, “Father! Father!” 
without regard to elocutionary rules, and Miranda 
Dorothea was screaming with fright; Aristarchus was 
struggling into some clothes and I was wrapping a bed- 
quilt about my drenched person, when our chamber- 
door burst suddenly open and a fireman, with glazed 
hat on his head and axe in hand demanded to be told 
in what part of the house the fire was located. We had 
hard work to convince him that the house was not and 
had not been on fire, and our united efforts were una¬ 
vailing to stop the stream of water that was pouring 
into our chamber, or the stream of furniture and books 
that was pouring out of the looms below, until the 
latter were nearly emptied and the former was nearly 
inundated. But the work of destruction was at last 
stayed, and the fire company and attending crowd dis¬ 
persed, with the exception of an army of small boys 
who remained behind to cheer Aristarchus and me 
while we conveyed the ruins of our books and furniture 
into the house. Many of the books were torn from 
their covers as they were thrown from the windows, 
and some were soaked with water, while not an article 
of furniture had escaped damage of some kind. It 
seemed likely to prove the most expensive adventure 
with which we had ever met. 
Aristarchus had not been out on the street more than 
once or twice after the fire before he made up his mind 
that Highslope was a very unhealthy place for him, and 
we made abrupt and speedy preparations for leaving 
town. 
Aristarchus dropped elocution—so did Leander and 
Miranda Dorothea. I never picked it up. 
Mrs. Susie A. Bisbee. 
HOW TO DRY PLANTS. 
Mr. Leo H. Grindon, whose name is well known in 
scientific circles, gives the following practical hints on 
this subject in an article in The Field Naturalist, of 
London. 
The very ancient adage that if a thing be worth doing 
at all it is worth doing well applies to the preservation 
of plants for the herbarium as much as to any great and 
important work or business. Specimens that are no 
better than fragments of brown stick, or that seem 
effigies of plants cut out of thin brown paper, the 
flowers shrivelled and shrunk so as to be no longer in¬ 
telligible, the leaves crumpled and doubled up, every¬ 
thing confused and mashed together, such as one may 
see sometimes in collections, are altogether undeserving 
of the name. Nothing that is not dried in the best 
manner possible—its colors and configuration preserved 
as perfectly as the nature of the plant will admit— 
ought ever to be allowed a permanent place in the her¬ 
barium. The bad may be tolerated awhile, in default 
of better, but the further a specimen is from vivid and 
pleasing resemblance to the living thing, the speedier 
should be the endeavor to supersede it. Specimens 
from abroad that cannot be superseded of course we do 
not speak of. In the case of plants within reach, none 
but admirable representatives of their best features 
while alive should be considered worthy of a place. 
Plants dry very variously. Some require not a 
moment’s trouble; others demand patience. Now and 
then the case is hopeless, and we are constrained to fall 
back upon the pencil, and prefer drawings, colored ones 
if possible. Grasses and their allies, most kinds of 
ferns, plants that resemble heather, “everlastings,” the 
mature leaves of shrubs and trees, call for only the 
minimum. Those which try the patience, and can be 
managed only after considerable experience with easy 
ones, are such as may be illustrated by citation of the 
hyacinth. To secure the best results, obtain first half 
a dozen pieces of stout millboard, cut to about eighteen 
inches by twelve. Then gather together a hundred old 
newspapers, and fold them neat and square to about 
the dimensions of the millboards. Four or five yards of 
common white cotton wadding, a score of sheets of 
tissue paper and as many of blotting paper, all cut to 
the same size, complete the apparatus. One of the 
boards serve for the foundation : on this lay a news¬ 
paper, then a piece of wadding, and upon this place the 
specimen intended to be dried. The cotton being soft 
and retentive, every portion can be laid in a proper and 
natural way, including the petals of the flowers. A 
newspaper above, two or three if the specimens have 
thick stems, and so on, till all shall be deposited in the 
way of the first. If the specimens are sticky or hairy, 
or of a kind that the wadding seems likely to adhere 
to, then, before depositing them on it, introduce a half 
sheet of the tissue paper. A heavy weight must be put 
on the top of all, sufficient to imbed the specimens in 
the wadding, then leave the whole to rest for twenty- 
four hours. All the papers must then be changed, dry 
