OF EDUCATION 37 



which is china. Feldspar helps very much to make 

 the soil fertile, and by holding the moisture it keeps 

 the soil from drying up in a dry summer. 



1 ' We have had at least a dozen very brilliant ex- 

 periments with the four elements which make up all 

 feldspar. Potassium was thrown into water and it 

 instantly set the hydrogen in the water on fire, while 

 the oxygen set the potassium on fire, and both 

 burned together." 



Wheat. 



11 For nature study this morning we have the ma- 

 ture wheat plant. My specimen is forty inches high. 

 Its color is a beautiful shade of light yellow — the 

 real straw color. The nodes, or joints, begin just 

 above the roots, and are all just about twice the dis- 

 tance from the next ; for instance, the first is one 

 inch from the root, the second two inches from that, 

 the next about four inches from the second, and so on 

 all the way up. The nodes are perfectly solid, while 

 the rest of the stock is hollow, and at every node a 

 long, narrow, parallel-veined leaf grows out. The 

 nodes are of a little darker color than the spaces in 

 between, which are called internodes. The inter- 

 nodes are largest in the middle, and taper all the way 

 from the middle to the nodes. 



"The spike or head of the wheat is about three 



