| Share page |
|
What Shall We Do Now? 229
of chloride of lime. Mix thoroughly, breaking up any lumps with the hand. Add two and a half quarts of water, cover over, and leave for twenty-four hours. Then pour off the solution, leaving the sediment behind. Dissolve two pounds of soda in one quart of boiling water, and pour it, while on the boil, over the chloride solution. Cover it, and leave for forty-eight hours ; then decant into bottles, being careful to leave all sediment behind.
Fill an earthenware dish with this solution, lay the leaves in it, and cover tightly. The leaves will be bleached in six to twelve hours. They should be taken out directly they are white, as the lime makes them very brittle. After bleaching, rinse the leaves in cold water, float them on to cards, and dry between blotting-paper, under a heavy weight.
It should be noted that if you intend to skeletonise ferns, they should not be picked before August, and they must be pressed and dried before they are put into the bleaching solution, in which they ought to stay for three or four days. The solution should be changed on the second day, and again on the fourth. After bleaching they can be treated just as the leaves are.
Cut out two rings of cardboard, of whatever size you like, from one inch in diameter up to about four inches. A four-inch ring would make as large a ball as one usually needs, and a one-inch ring as small a one as could be conveniently made. The rim of the largest rings should not be wider than half an inch. Take a ball of wool and, placing the cardboard rings together, tie the end of it firmly round them. Then wind the wool over the rings, moving them round and round to keep it even. At first you will be able to push the ball through the rings easily, but as the wool is wound the hole will grow smaller and smaller, until you have to thread the wool through with a needle. To do this it is necessary to cut the wool into lengths, which you must be careful to join securely. Go on until the hole is completely filled and you cannot squeeze another needle through. Then |
Ferns. |
||
|
Wool balls. |
|||