The Growth of Seeds 29 



CHAPTER IV 



THE GROWTH OF SEEDS 



Season. First week in November. 

 Materials required for each pupil. 



The saucer containing the beans and acorns must 

 be brought from home. In addition each child will 

 want two acorn glasses or test tubes fitted with paper 

 funnels and labels, and two of each of the following 

 seeds: sweet pea, horse-chestnut, wheat 1 , sycamore, pine. 

 A warm room, greenhouse, or cupboard warmed by hot 

 pipes. (If the seeds are grown entirely without heat 

 germination will be found tediously slow.) 



If you have been looking every day at the acorns 

 that you put to soak a week ago you will have seen 

 that after a few days three even cracks appeared at the 

 pointed end. To-day a small white point is beginning 

 to force its way between the cracks. This point is the 

 tip of the root of the growing oak tree. If you split 

 open one of your acorns at this stage, and compare it 

 with what you saw last time you drew the inside of an 

 acorn, you will find that the other end of the little 

 plant, which is called the shoot, and will in time grow 

 into the leaves and branches, has hardly grown at all 

 yet. Although the beans were put to soak on the same 

 day as the acorns they are already showing quite long 



1 Before purchasing wheat from seedsman, brewer, or flour miller, it 

 is well to enquire whether it is likely to grow. Some wheat which is on 

 sale as foodstuff has been killed so that it will not do so. 



