121r - - - - - [continued]
a sign that there is some humidity, and if the flower was also somewhat watery it would rot. Nor should it be too rough, because its weight would burden the flower and make it lose its original shape. Once you have chosen it as needed, take a box and inside this start by making a small mound of sand on top of which you will lay the stalk of the flower flat, so that the flower touches neither the bottom nor the edges of the box but remains in the air. Then add more sand on the stalk so that it remains firm and fixed. Finally take some of the same sand and pulverize and sprinkle it finely with two fingers on the flower, imitating the flow of an hourglass. And once the flower is half covered or so, strike with your fist the table on which the box is laid, so that the sand drops and enters everywhere. Finally cover the entire flower and lay other flowers in order, one over the other, as many as the box will hold. After you have arranged them thus, put the box out in hot sun for several days. And while the flower is drying, the sand that is packed together, by continuously holding it, does not allow it to shrivel and shrink. On the contrary, it needs to dry remaining in the same state as when you put it there. But to that effect take care you chose knapweeds, marigolds, the yellow meadow flowers called ranunculus or palta lupina, amaranths, and similar flowers, such as broom and others that you will know from experience.
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The sand that goldsmiths use to rub enamels and the white one that glassworkers use and any thin sand that does not set, you put through a sieve made of horsehair because it needs not be too thin. Then dry the sand well in the sun for several days in order to remove its humidity, and ventilate it as you would do with wheat so that the dust becomes separated from it. After taking that dust, well dried, use it as you know.
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Pansies are preserved in the same way.
Keeping fruits throughout the year
You need to pick them in calm and quite dry weather & by the stem, without touching the fruits with your hand, and to put them into glass bottles that have wide necks, such as tall glass jars for preserves. Protect them with straw or something else so that they may not break, and seal them well with wax so that they may not breathe. And if they have glass lids well sealed with wax, it will be all the better. Put them in a case and put this in the well, or in the cellar, or in a vat or plot of earth full of water.
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Because wherever the hand touches them they will rot, and it is even best not to breathe on them. You can also put vine leaves with them.