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Bright-colored flowers are best adapted to this method. White flowers are apt to turn yellow. Jack-in-the-pulpits, clover, roses, and daisies came out beautifully when the writer dried them, and why should not many other kinds do just as well? Try and see.

Procure three or four quarts of fine sand; white scouring-sand is the best; wash it perfectly clean. This can be tested by pouring the water off until it looks quite clear; then dry the sand, by placing it in a clean tin in the oven. When it is dry—fully dry and cool—pour enough in a box to enable the flowers to stand by themselves, their stems embedded in the sand, which should be a mass of fine particles of uniform size.

Preserved Flowers.

If the flowers are cut so that they all measure nearly the same length from the tip of the blossom to the end of the stem, they can more readily be covered with sand. The flowers must be fresh and entirely free from moisture. Place them stem downward in the sandy layer, and very gently and slowly pour in the sand a little at a time, until each leaf and petal is firmly held in place (Fig. 5); then fill the box with sand nearly two inches above the level of the flowers.

It is very essential that every particle of the flower rest in the sand, and that in filling up, the smallest petal has not been bent or crumpled.

Take care not to shake the box lest the flowers inside be injured. Set it in a warm, dry place, and let it stand at least two weeks.

This manner of preserving flowers retains the color, while the shape of the leaves and petals remains unaltered. The flowers will keep for years.

There are other ways also of preserving flowers.