HOW TO MAKE A HERBARIUM.

BY CAROLINE A. CREEVEY.

A young lady who was a great lover of wild flowers once brought me a number of pressed specimens to name. They were carefully pressed, but were loosely laid between the pages of a magazine. Among them were several choice plants, one or two of the rarer orchids, and a ginseng that I had never found. In handling them the leaves and flower petals had become broken.

"Your specimens are being ruined," I said. "Why do you not gum them each on a separate piece of paper and lay them in a box? You have here an excellent beginning for a herbarium."

"Oh dear, no!" she said. "I never could take the trouble to make a herbarium. I don't care for the flowers after I know what they are. You may have them all, and welcome."

She had doubtless seen the longing look in my eyes. I was generous, however, and tried to persuade my friend to treasure her own flowers, which she had been at some pains to press, assuring her that the herbarium did certainly pay for its trouble, and that unless she were a collector she would fail of becoming a real botanist. My arguments had no effect, and I fell heir to my friend's specimens.

Another time a lady (a member of a botanical club) said to me: "I don't care to make a collection. I would as soon look at hay as dried plants. What I want to study is living nature."

This sounds like a fine sentiment, and if the herbarium were to take the place of out-door study, we would better burn our entire collection.

Here are the questions, then: How will the herbarium help us in our study of flowers? and Why is it not better to confine our study to "living nature"?

We cannot deny that the herbarium is a matter of time and trouble; but nothing worth having can be acquired without trouble. There is a lever which lightens all tasks wonderfully. That lever is enthusiasm. If you are enthusiastic about anything, you will be pretty sure to succeed, whether that thing be music, drawing, or even arithmetic. This is especially true of nature studies. The successful student of insects, birds, flowers, shells, or rocks must love his work with a passionate ardor. He must almost be a man with a hobby.

Now perhaps you will say, "I have not this enthusiasm, and therefore I shall not be successful." Let me tell you a secret. Nature herself inspires enthusiasm. You have but to work in any one of her departments, and you will learn to adore her. She is like a story-book. The first few pages, and especially the preface, are somewhat dry. But pretty soon, as the story opens up, you can hardly leave it for your meals or your sleep.

The principal value of a herbarium is that one has it always on hand for reference when the living flower cannot be studied. After the summer comes winter. My young lady who threw away her flowers forgot their names during the winter. She could not help forgetting some of them, for the botanical names of flowers are often hard to learn, being composed of Latin or Greek words, or of proper names with Latin terminations; and sometimes it would seem that the smaller and more unpretentious the plant the longer and more jaw-breaking its name.

When early spring comes, one can make a point of reviewing his herbarium and refreshing one's memory, so as to begin where he left off last fall. Thus each season's work is clear gain. The very labor necessary to make a herbarium impresses the flower and its peculiarities vividly upon the memory. If you handle and linger over your flowers, they will seem to you like pets whose sweet faces you cannot forget.

You want your herbarium, then, for reference, just as you need an encyclopædia in your library. You want it when the snow is on the ground and there is no "living nature" in the flower realm to study.

Every page of the herbarium should look neat and pretty. In order to secure this result you must first know how to press your flowers. A flower once wilted can never be made to look nice on paper. It is therefore necessary to keep fresh the specimen you wish to preserve. You might carry a large book, and shut your flowers in it as soon as plucked. But that would be inconvenient. A better way is to buy a botany box and carry it with you in all your walks. You never know when you may find some new thing. The box is of tin, opening on one side, and it may hang by straps from your shoulder. If you lay a little wet moss inside, and close the door every time you lay in a flower, your plants will keep fresh in their cool dark nest for three or four days.

To press them tear up newspapers into uniform sizes. Newspapers are porous, and absorb the moisture from plant stems and leaves better than brown wrapping-paper. Insert several leaves of the newspaper between the single flowers. When all are ready, place the whole pile between two boards, the same size as the papers (any carpenter will cut them for you), and lay the whole under a heavy weight, like a trunk or pile of large books. Once a day look over your plants, and put those not quite pressed into clean dry papers. The papers already used, unless badly stained, can be spread out, dried, and used again. The problem is how to dry the plant quickly and thoroughly. The quicker it is dried the better it retains its colors. The petals will fade, but careful pressing will make them look very well, not at all like hay. If the plant be taken out of its press too soon its leaves will wrinkle. Some delicate plants will dry in twenty-four hours' time, others take three or four days, or even a week.

Have ready sheets of nice white paper. These you can get a printer to cut for you of uniform size. The regulation size is 17 by 11 inches. If the specimen be too long for the paper, bend the stem once or twice. A botanical specimen should include the whole stalk down to the root, unless, like some of the taller sunflowers, it be quite too long for the page. Place only one specimen on a page, and fasten it in several places with narrow strips of gummed paper. Last fall I had a bright idea. After the election I collected a number of unused ballot pasters. From these next summer I shall cut blank strips, already gummed, and I shall moisten them with a wet camel's-hair brush, and use them for my herbarium. Large leaves will stay down better if a drop of mucilage be placed in their centre. When the stem is very heavy I sew it with double thread tied on the under side, or I cut two small slits in my paper, and slip the stem through. As fast as sheets are prepared, leave them under a large book till the mucilage is dry. The page is then ready for labelling. Write now in the lower right-hand corner your own name, the botanical and common name of the flower, where and when found; or you can get labels with your name printed on them, which you can paste on the bottom of your page.

HERBARIUM OF J. BROWN.

Caltha palustris

(Marsh-Marigold).

In marsh near Bridgeport, May 3, 1894.

The papers belonging to the same family should now be placed inside of family covers, made of still brown paper, and these again should be inclosed in a box. I use the boxes in which tailors send my husband's shirts and suits of clothes. On the cover of the box write the families which it contains. That plan facilitates finding any particular specimen. Certain families, as ferns and orchids, go well together; mints and figworts are allied. Composites should have a box to themselves, and the species should be gathered into genus covers.

The botany gives directions for poisoning plants, if you are likely to be troubled with insects. Many of my mounted specimens are ten or twelve years old, yet I have never had any such annoyance. Therefore I do not poison my plants. I always use mucilage. Perhaps flour paste or starch would afford food for insects.

It is pleasant to keep a flower calendar as part of the herbarium. Procure a diary, and note the day when you first find certain flowers. This, if kept several successive years, will show interesting variations of season, and of the time of the flowering of the same plants.

For study of trees keep a leaf album. I know of no other way to learn the many species of oak and maple.

The herbarium is never a finished book. Each year, as you visit different parts of the country, you will add to its beautiful pages. You may well show it to your friends with pride. It is an achievement, a monument of your industry, and proof of your knowledge. To yourself it will be a source of never-ending pleasure. Here a leaf will recall a visit to a friend, a trip to the mountains, or a month at the sea-side. This flower suggests a picnic, or a shady walk, or mountain stroll with choice companions. Turn to the herbarium on a day in January, when the wind and snow are having a merry dance outside, and you will see visions of sweet woods, fresh fields, and blooming wild flowers, biding their time, but sure to come again.