a dry garden, an appellation given to a collection of specimens of plants, carefully dried and preserved.

Take a specimen of a plant in flower, and with it one of its bottom-leaves, if it have any; bruise the stalk, if too rigid; slit it, if too thick; spread out the leaves and flowers on paper; cover the whole with more paper, and lay a weight over all. At the end of eighteen hours take out the plants, now perfectly flattened; lay them on a bed of dry common sand; sift over them more dry sand, to the depth of two inches, and thus let them lie about three weeks: the less succulent dry much sooner, but they take no harm afterwards. If the floor of a garret be covered in spring with sand two inches deep, leaving space for walking to the several parts, it will receive the collection of a whole summer, the covering of sand being sifted over every parcel as laid in. They need no farther care, from the time of laying them, till they are taken up to be stuck on paper. The cement used is a solution of gum-arabic in water.

Plants may be dried very well without sand, by only putting them frequently into fresh quires of paper, or a few by only pressing them between the leaves of a book; but the sand-method preserves the colour best, and is done with least trouble.