WOOD 99 



/. Cut off a small slice from one end of a potato, and set 

 the potato with its cut end in a shallow dish (saucer) containing 

 water. After an hour color the water with red ink, and allow 

 the potato to remain in the dish for 3 or 4 hours. Finally cut 

 the potato open lengthwise. How high has the red color 

 risen? Has it risen through the whole of the potato, or along 

 certain lines? What are these lines? 



Cut off slices (cross sections) from the potato, beginning at 

 the end that was farthest from the colored water. What 

 evidence do you get that the water rose into the potato? 



g. Carry out the same experiment as in /, using a stalk of 

 rhubarb with the leaf attached. First cut off a piece from the 

 lower edge of the stalk. Can you see the ends of the woody 

 bundles? Now put the stalk, first, into water, then into 

 colored water, and leave it some hours, or over night. Cut 

 off slices from the stalk at various places. What is the appear- 

 ance of the ends of the woody bundles? See if the colored 

 water has gone into the leaf. Is the rhubarb a monocotyl or 

 a dicotyl? 



You can use the weeds plantain, burdock, and lamb's- 

 quarters as well as rhubarb for this experiment. 



EXERCISE 92 

 WOOD 



Apparatus and Materials. Sandpaper, carpenter's plane (?), "tin" 

 can; several kinds of wood, wire nail, hammer, paint, shellac, burnt 

 umber, linseed oil, turpentine, a cloth, and a paint brush. 



a. With sandpaper smooth the surfaces of blocks or boards 

 of oak (plain-sawed and quarter-sawed), whitewood, white 

 pine, Georgia pine, and hemlock. If the ends are rough, 

 smooth them first with a plane (or have a carpenter do it); 

 then use the sandpaper. 



