AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS 



ment, is a daily lesson beginning with the baby 

 seed. Accordingly, the children must see what 

 is going on underground. It is not feasible for 

 every child himself to conduct all the experiments, 

 but as each should do as much work of that sort 

 as possible, a number of experiments in germina- 

 tion can be made.* First, let 

 the teacher arrange a root cage 

 with garden soil, and plant at 

 the same depth as the children 

 did, one seed of each of the dif- 

 ferent vegetables. These will 

 illustrate what is happening in 

 the earth. But would every seed 

 act alike? some child should be 

 led to ask. By way of answer, 

 let a group of children take a 

 number of seed germinators and 

 place a dozen or twenty seeds 

 of one kind in each and later 

 compare the germination in the 

 testers with that of the same kind 

 of seed in the root cage. Let each 

 of the other children plant one or 

 two seeds of each sort in different kinds of soil, 

 sandy, clayey, etc., in moss, or even in sawdust. 



View of End Piece 

 Showing Grooves 

 Root cage, glass 8 

 inches X lo inches; 

 frame of lath, 9 inches 

 X 1 1 inches; end 

 piece width of lath; 

 strips of lath put on 

 to form grooves. 



* In order to examine readily the very starting of germination, 

 some seeds should be germinated on wet blotting paper placed on 

 one plate and covered by another to keep seeds warm, damp and dark. 

 They should be looked at each day, preferably under a microscope 

 or magnifying glass, 



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