CHAPTER XX. 



STUDY OF FRUITS AND SEEDS. 



WE pass from the flower to the consideration of the fruit. 

 Indoors this subject should be dealt with observationally. 

 In the first instance, i.e. in the youngest classes, as indi- 

 cated in the courses outlined, nothing particular should be 

 attempted in the way of "explaining" the parts of the 

 fruit. The fundamentally important point, viz. that fruits 

 enclose seeds, should be educed from an examination of a 

 number of different kinds, and this will incidentally exclude 

 some edible products which are not fruits. Facts regard- 

 ing shape and colour, numbers of parts, and corresponding 

 parts in different fruits will all yield subject-matter of 

 profitable comment. 



The fruits can be drawn and persistent parts of the 

 flower may be noted in simple cases, e.g. the calyx in a 

 gooseberry or strawberry may form the subject of sug- 

 gestive comment, the one occurring above the fruit and 

 the other below. The chief thing for the teacher is to 

 raise points of real significance which will be developed in 

 later studies. Even here some of the commoner wild 

 fruits may form the subject of study, being admitted 

 because they answer to our elementary test, viz. the 

 presence of seeds. 



The next step may suitably be a study of fruits with 

 reference to their dissemination and the dispersal of the 

 seeds. Pupils will readily see the necessity for scattering 

 when the numbers of seeds produced by a single plant are 

 noted. A profitable preliminary exercise is one in which 

 each pupil is asked to count the seeds in all the fruits 



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