I004 



Rural School Leaflet 



of the pieces of glass, and in each of the round pockets place a few seeds 

 of some weed. Write the name of the weed on the cardboard just below 

 the pockets. When all the spaces are filled and labeled, lay the other 

 piece of glass on top, and bind around the edges with passe partout tape. 

 Then you will have a collection of seeds that can be kept and studied be- 

 cause they can be easily seen between the glass through the openings in 

 the cardboard. Do not entirely fill the openings with seeds, because 

 then it would not be possible to shake one seed away from the others 

 in order to study it by itself. 



In working with small weed seeds, a lens of some kind is very useful. 

 Many schools have a small tripod lens or a pocket lens, but if these are 

 not available some one in the neighborhood will have a magnifying glass, 

 such as is used for reading. This will do qmte as well. With any of 



I. 2. 3. 4. 5. 



Seeds of five common weeds, natural size and much enlarged: i, Orange hawkweed; 2, 

 long-leaved plantain, or rihgrass; j, wild carrot; 4, Canada thistle; 5, wild mustard 



these lenses the seeds in a mount, such as the one described above, can be 

 studied closely, because they can be seen through the glass and the lens 

 can be held close to them. 



. If every school would begin a collection of weed seeds at once and obtain 

 at least the five weeds given in the syllabus, it would be a fine start. The 

 study of weed seeds is going to lead to something that will be of great 

 interest to the community, and that is the testing of farm seeds. The 

 January leaflet will tell about this, but we must first get ready by learning 

 to know weed seeds when we see them. 



Perhaps some schools will want to buy a book to help with this work. 

 There is an excellent one entitled " Farm Weeds," which may be 

 obtained for one dollar from the Superintendent of vStationery, Govern- 

 ment Printing Bureau, Ottawa, Canada. It contains pictures of all 

 the common weeds and of their seeds. Many of the illustrations are 

 in color, and this will help you in identifying your specimens. If you 

 find any weed that is not known in the neighborhood nor described in 

 any of your books, send it to us and we \\411 tell you about it. We 

 shall be glad to receive special reports from schools on weed study. 



