Supplement to 



S^uniot IRaturalist /llbontbl^ 



Published by the College of Agriculture of Cornell 

 University, from October to May, and entered at 

 Ithaca as second-class matter. L. H. Bailey, Director 



ALICE G. McCLOSKEY, Editor 



New Series. Vol. 2. ITHACA, N. Y., DECEMBER, 1905. No. 3 



HOW TO HELP PLANTS TO GROW 



By John W. Spencer 



Last month I showed you how Little Miss Pepperpod sowed .some 

 lifeless looking seeds and from them came some living peppergrass plants 

 That was bringing a plant into life. This month I must tell you how to 

 help them to grow and become adult plants. 



Some people say that plants never grow for them, and would lea'i 

 you to suppose that plants sometimes become sulky and cross and would 

 not grow if they could. 



That is a mistake. Here is something I hope you will remember a?^ 

 long as you live. You may call it one of the " garden commandments :" 

 Ei'cry plant has an impulse or tendency to grozv and become the very 

 best of its kind. 



The help that plants ask of you that they may do their best, 

 is that you make them comfortable. You ask me wb.at you must do to 

 make plants comfortable? Ah, there's the rub! 



I shall help you to learn all that by keeping and watching some grow- 

 ing plants that are your very own. 



Another "garden commandment" that you must remember is this: 

 JVe have zvhat zee migJit call cold-loving plants and tvarm-lox iiig plants. 



The peppergrass belongs to the cold-loving class of plants. We will 

 talk aljout the warm-loving class when the days are growing longer and 

 warmer, rather than now when they are growing shorter and colder. 



Peppergrass is more comfortable during the moist and cool weather 

 of spring and fall when school is in session than during the hot and dry 

 months of the midsummer vacations. 



H you have some peppergrass farms in the schoolroom and there 

 should be no fires Saturday and Sunday, the farms should be left in the 



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