STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 75 



in other ways. Lay upon a plate a moistened sheet of thick blotting 

 paper, place some seeds of each kind upon it, and over these 

 another sheet of paper, keeping the wh^le moist and warm. Place 

 a layer of cotton batting upon a tumbler of water and lay a few 

 seeds upon this. When a seedling has started suspend it by a 

 thread over some water in a glass, so that the roots dip into the 

 water while the seed-leaves remain above, and note in what part of 

 the root growth takes place, but puncturing it at regular intervals 

 with a needle dipped in India ink. By such means the growth of 

 the root may be easily traced and compared with that of the stem. 

 Such simple experiments all through the work add much to excite 

 the interest and quicken the observation. 



As we pass to the parts of the plants, their peculiar forms and 

 their relations to each other, the facts are very numerous upon 

 which the skilful teacher can draw. If the children have the great 

 advantage of living in the country, encourage them to go'for flowers 

 to learn their haunts and habits. From what soil does the flower 

 spring? What conditions does it require as regards sun and shade, 

 dryness and moisture? What enables the delicate flowers of spring 

 to follow so closely upon the frozen footsteps of winter? The pecu- 

 liarities of different plants, their habits, as illustrated in the so-called 

 sleep of flowers and their movements, visible and invisible, as shown 

 in the coiling of tendrils, or the quick closing of the leaves of the 

 sensitive plant, suggest subjects of which space permits mention 

 only here. 



As we come to the study of the flower, the variations of color, 

 form and growth, in which may still be traced the simple, wonder- 

 ful laws of development that are the same for the tiniest blossom as 

 the most brilliant, we open to a chapter of which we may well 

 despair of reaching the end. With certain principles the pupil 

 should always, of course, become familiar. To one subject only I 

 will call attention in this connection, the relation of insects to 

 plants in the work of fertilization. This is strikingly illustrated in 

 the little bluet or innocent that whitens the fields in early summer. 

 In certain clumps of flowers the long ?tamens are found with the 

 short pistils, in others, the long pistil but short stamens, so that the 

 bee in his flight from flower to flower brushes the pollen from the 

 long stamens of one flower to deposit it on the long pistil of another, 

 and vice versa. Although as yet but imperfectly understood it is a 

 subject too full of interest and importance to be left untouched. 



