254 NATURE STUDY REVIEW [8 :7— Oct., 1912r 



are white potatoes, recently dug. since these show the markings 

 better than potatoes which have been out of the ground for some 

 time. 



As preparation for the next class the students study the sum- 

 mary which is here appended. Formerly they were given merely 

 an outline and were supposed to collect their own data from 

 books, periodical literature and experience. This method was 

 found unsatisfactory, partly because the information was usually 

 either scanty or needlessly detailed, and some of it contradictory, 

 and partly because it was purely empirical, giving no hint of 

 the botanical principles underlying the culture. These were of 

 course to be developed in the recitation following the laboratory 

 exercise, but it proved necessary to present them for considera- 

 tion beforehand. 



The recitation, including a demonstration of food tests, usual- 

 ly takes the class well into methods of out-door planting — a sub- 

 ject which has no place in this article. 



At the next class, pot-planting is discussed by the class and 

 demonstrated in detail by the teacher. Then each student, tak- 

 ing the bulb and the labeled stake which she has found at her 

 seat, goes down to the basement laboratory, where she finds 

 all the rest of the necessary equipment and plants according to 

 the directions just received. Each pot is inspected before being 

 placed in the trench mentioned in the summary. In previous 

 years both the garret and the cellar were tried as substitutes for 

 this trench, but were found to have serious drawbacks. In the 

 garret it was difficult to water the bulbs and to protect them 

 from mice, and in the cellar the temperature was too high to 

 stimulate root growth in any bulbs except the varieties of nar- 

 cissus. 



The pots remain in the trench until after the Christmas vaca- 

 tion. Sometimes they are left until February 1st. as it is diffi- 

 cult under school conditions to force hyacinths successfully much 

 before that time. Then on a favorable day they are dug up by 

 the janitor and are cleaned by the students and placed on tables 

 in the center of the basement laboratory, where they mav obtain 

 a little sunlight. The hyacinths, as soon as their leaves are about 

 an inch and a half long, are covered with a black paper cone 

 having at its upper end an opening as large as a twenty-five cent 

 piece. This stimulates leaf growth and inhibits premature de- 

 velopment of the flower cluster. The soil is watered whenever 

 it becomes dry, and when the flowers o])en, the plants are used 

 to decorate the rooms in the school. Last year the bulbs were 

 especially fine and were exhibited for three days. Care is taken 



