7° THE NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [i. 2, march, 1905 



that land-plants are capable of absorbing their nutritive matters 

 out of watery solutions, without the aid of soil, and that it is 

 possible in this way not only to maintain plants alive and growing 

 for a long time, as had long been known, but also to bring about 

 a vigorous increase of their organic substance, and even the pro- 

 duction of seeds capable of germination." 



I have utilized all that this honored botanist and others have 

 recorded regarding artificial nutrition of plants, and have added 

 these three points : ( 1 ) Convenience of supplying the chemicals 

 in tablet form. (2) Novelties (to attract the young folks) in sit- 

 uations of growing plants. (3) A germinating case for scientific 

 or popular observation and experiment. 



This is how I came to use chemicals in tablet form for feeding 

 plants. For many years I have been visiting schoolrooms and 

 talking to the young folks on nature-study. I have also been 

 accompanied by young folks, in parties of from a few to two hun- 

 dred and fifty in number, on natural-history excursions along the 

 roadsides, across the fields, through the forests and in the meadows 

 and swamps. In a single year I have taken as many as 4,500 

 girls and boys on tramps aggregating more than 175 miles. Most 

 of this has been in the spring; but just why I have never been 

 able to understand, for surely Nature is interesting at all sea- 

 sons. But requests for the help of the naturalist-guide come 

 almost wholly in the spring. At this season plant life is especially 

 active, new, living and growing. That is — let me qualify this 

 statement — the plant life outdoors to which I introduced the young 

 folks. Indoors that to which they introduced me, in the form of 

 seeds germinating on cotton, blotting paper or sawdust, most fre- 

 quently suggested death rather than life. Sometimes the mass 

 would be decaying, filthy, ill-smelling, disgusting. And the young 

 folks would apologetically say, " You should have seen it a few 

 days ago, then it was growing nicely." 



At this same time, plant life outdoors was becoming better and 

 better ; every day added to the charm, and brought new interests. 

 Gradually the impression deepened that something was wrong. 

 Every time the young folks or teachers called my attention to 

 germinating seeds in bad condition I felt a jar of discord. I 

 admit that it took several years of such experience to formulate 

 itself into more than annoyance, and to become a determination to 

 find a remedy. I was familiar, as are most teachers of botany, 



