368 Home Nature-Study Course. 



I would suggest the following topics for an exercise in geography and 

 language work, either wTitten or oral: 



(a) How a Shetland pony might have planted the first burdock 

 seed in New York. 



(b) The voyage of a dock seed which grew in New York and was 

 finally planted near New Orleans. 



(c) How the Queen Anne's lace (wild carrot) was smuggled over 

 from Europe. 



(d) How the poison ivy berry was carried from New York over 

 the Rocky Moimtains. 



(e) Why the wild cherry trees are planted along the fences every- 

 where in New York State. 



Correlation of Seed Distribution with Arithmetic. 



While this question of correlation may easily be overdone, yet the 

 practical side of seed distribution actually requires some arithmetical 

 computation. As I am writing this, I hold in my hand a milkweed 

 pod that contains, as I have counted them, 142 seeds, and there were 

 four other pods similar to this on the plant from which I took the pod. 

 A flourishing milkw^eed plant requires approximately a foot square of 

 ground. It is quite inevitable that I should compute how many 

 square feet of ground the seeds from this one plant would cover 

 supposing they were all developed. 



In school, such work should not be idle speculation, for the whole 

 question of weeds and weed seeds is one that threatens the rural 

 districts anew every year. The carelessness of allowing a single 

 weed td grow when it might easily be cut before its seeds are de- 

 veloped, is what stocks our roadsides and meadows with these 

 thieves of the plant world. I know of no more practical lesson for 

 the farmer boy than to let him count the seeds in one blossom of 

 the dandelion and multiply that by the number of blossoms on the 

 plant, and then estimate how long it would take one plant to stock 

 his father's farm. 



LESSON III.— THE CHIPMUNK. 



Chipmunk is a friendly little creature to those who evince a friendly 

 spirit toward him; and he will make his home under j^our house or 

 barn or even in your dooryard if you are thoughtful enough of liis 

 comfort to refrain from keeping a cat. For years there has been a 

 chipmunk family within a few yards of the Insectary on the Cornell 



