6o2 Home Nature- Study Course. 



comfortable temperature in the schoolroom a greater amount of fuel is 

 burned. This heat is made available by first baking air and then pushing 

 it into the schoolroom. Baked air gives plants a most uncomfortable 

 feeling. The combination of puny light and high temperature is not 

 good. Plants that are thrifty at a summer temperature of 75° to 90° 

 under the strong glaring sun should in winter when the light is feeble be 

 kept at a day temperature of 60° and that of night at 45°. The question 

 of starch factories and the power that runs them as spoken of in the 

 December issue will explain the reasonableness of this statement. I 

 recall how once a principal of a school in a comparatively new building 

 showed me the perfect sanitary conditions of different rooms. In one 

 room was a collection of thrifty plants giving every evidence of plant 

 comfort. Those plants told me the conditions of heat and ventilation 

 more eloquently than the best sanitary engineer could have done. Begin- 

 ning with March the average is not so cold and, therefore, the air that 

 is supplied the school rooms is not so much baked and has a greater per 

 cent, of moisture. Incidentally, let me say there are some salamanders 

 and camels in plant life that can endure the fierce heat and simooms in 

 schools and living rooms and not be dead by spring. As many homes are 

 heated, the moist air and lower temperature of the kitchen afford plants 

 the most comfortable quarters in the house. 



LESSON CLXXL 



BOXES AND POTS FOR PLANTING. 



Purpose. — To make the pupil understand that common and cheap 

 receptacles are just as good for holding the soil in which seeds are 

 planted as are the more expensive boxes and pots. 



The receptacles in which to sow the seed for indoors are three, viz. : 

 tgg shells, two and one-half inch pots, and quart berry baskets. There 

 are some conditions where the egg shells are about all that the children 

 will be able to provide. Empty egg shells are very fragile but when 

 filled with soil will endure considerable handling. After filling with 

 earth, a small hole must be made in the bottom for drainage; they 

 should be set in a pan or box of sand, so that they will be supported in 

 an upright position. The two and one-half inch pots are not expensive, 

 — not more than a cent apiece — and will be found convenient. The 

 quart berry basket in some communities is most available. If the room 

 in the window seat is limited the owner of the berry box may be thought 

 of as a land baron, because of the greater space occupied as compared 

 with the others, yet if more than one variety of seed is sown it is none 

 too large. It should be lined with paper before being filled with earth 

 and some holes should be made in the paper lining for drainage. 



