( 6 ) 
placed in the drying paper ; others can often be kept together if 
encased in a small net—such the natives of many parts of India will be 
induced for a small fee to make. When care of the kind is needed and 
taken, the excellence of the specimen that results amply repays the 
trouble bestowed, since in all herbaria it is usual to find that fruits of 
this kind, even when they belong to familiar plants, are but poorly 
represented. It has been said that all pressing boards should be dis¬ 
carded, this is not because they are cumbersome merely, but because 
they are positively disadvantageous. The straps that accompany these 
boards are a constant temptation to pull too tight and so exert a pres¬ 
sure that is always destructive. There should be just enough pressure 
after leaves and flowers have been flattened out to keep them so ; to 
effect this the strings with which the bundles are tied should, as has 
already been said, be drawn tight enough to prevent the specimens 
from moving between the sheets of drying paper. This is the best 
gauge of the amount of pressure necessary: it cannot conveniently be 
less—it never should be greater. Even when used properly, straps 
are in India a source of vexation; they go so readily out of repair. It is 
therefore best to begin by parting with them —giving them away grati¬ 
fies the attendant who receives them and saves his master all further 
trouble with stitches that come undone and buckles that get broken. 
In laying down a rule as to the number of sheets to be placed 
between different layers of specimens, a number has been chosen that 
‘will be found in all ordinary cases sufificient. But a definite figure is 
mentioned only because a collector just beginning work prefers some 
precise rule to go by. In reality the amount of paper to be inter¬ 
posed between two layers will depend on the nature of the plant dried 
and the facilities the collector has for drying it, the second circum¬ 
stance being as a general rule of infinitely more consequence to him 
than the first. A very brief experience will show that for many herba¬ 
ceous plants fewer, and for some thick or even thin-stemmed succulent 
ones and for certain fruits many more intermediate sheets are 
necessary. But what one must keep in view, and insist on his native 
collectors keeping in view, is that whatever number of layers of speci¬ 
mens a bundle may accommodate, it should never consist of more than 
30 double sheets of drying paper or be more than 5 inches thick. 
Delicate flowers should be carefully put into paper when gathered: a 
small portable blotting pad is a very good thing to carry about for 
this purpose. There they can be kept flat till the close of the day’s 
collection, when the sheets containing them can be laid in the drying 
paper along with the specimens to which they belong and along with 
the notes that refer to both. If one does not grudge the trouble and 
396 
