28 TREES IN WINTER 



Students' Collections — Students' collections formed a prom- 

 inent part in the older courses ill botany. To identify, 

 collect, press and mount a hundred specimens, as was frequently 

 required, gave certainly an added familiarity with plants, but the 

 amount of mechanical labor involved is unduly large in proportion 

 to the results obtained. 



With trees the flowers are of minor interest, leaves and winter 

 twigs furnishing the chief identificational features avail- 

 able for collections. Individual leaves can be easily pressed, 

 placing them between the pages of a book being frequently suffi- 

 cient. Winter twigs need no preparation before being sewed 

 or otherwise fastened to mounting paper. It has been the writer's 

 practice to require of students a small collection of leaves in the 

 fall and a similar collection of twigs in the winter or early spring. 

 Accompanying each leaf or twig is given a short characterization 

 emphasizing its chief marks of distinction. The specimens may be 

 largely collected on the field trips and the mechanical labor of 

 preparation is not excessive. 



More elaborate individual work can be done by the student if 

 time is available. Keys can be worked out for various groups 

 of trees. A tree book may be made including some of the com- 

 monest forms within a limited area and representing them by spec- 

 imens, by drawings, by photographs or by half-tone pictures. Such 

 a tree book may be with or without written matter on each tree 

 represented, but its preparation would assuredly give one knowl- 

 edge of the trees studied. In the writer's experience the most ef- 

 fective way to learn about trees is to write a book on the subJ9ct. 



A school collection for permanent exhibition is desirable and 

 warrants a greater outlay of time and labor than could be given 

 to the work by the individual students. Each tree should be rep- 

 sented by at least a leaf, a winter twig, a picture of the bark and 

 one of the habit. The fruit is also generally desirable. Among 

 the things that can be added to advantage are the flowers, a seed- 

 ling, an outline map with shaded areas showing the distribution of 

 the species, and a series of wood sections such as may be obtained 

 of R. B. Hough, Lo\wille, N. Y. These specimens of each species 

 may be mounted together on cotton in shallow, glass-front boxes 

 such as the Eiker cases, or conveniently exhibited behind glass 

 which is passepartouted to a firm back in the manner in which pic- 



