1898 | OBSERVATIONS UPON THE NEWER BOTANY 263 
in some instances not being upon the surface; but this only adds 
to the interest that is centered in the clearing and its sur- 
roundings. 
This is the newer botany. It is not yet in the books, and, in 
one sense, never can be. It inheres in the plants themselves, 
and any attempt to lodge it elsewhere must needs be futile. I 
trust each teacher of the science of botany may find a field for 
study in the sense of the clearing above briefly outlined. 
It may be more convenient for some student and teacher, 
and one needs to be both to be the latter, to have a garden patch 
where plants may be asked various questions. If it is in the 
line above indicated, a shading total or partial may be easily 
arranged. For example, a half shade may be provided by plac- 
ing frames of lath upon stakes. The frames may be made, for 
a few cents, by nailing ordinary carpenter’s laths to cross laths 
at the ends with a single lath interwoven through the middle. 
If half shading is desired, let the vacant spaces between the 
laths be equal to the width of the laths. Under such a shading 
ordinary plants, like bush beans, lettuce, etc., may be grown, and 
the variations in time of germination, size of plant, of leaf, time 
of blooming, size of fruit, longevity, etc., can all be studied 
with no small amount of interest and profit at a minimum of 
expense. 
Should you like to make a record of the difference in thick- 
ness, for example, between the exposed and shaded leaves it can 
be done by actual measurement, but there is another way not 
mentioned in the books. Place the bean leaflets, one from the 
open and one from the shade, upona slip of clean glass ina 
photographer’s printing frame, and over the two specimens lay 
a sheet of sensitized paper, and expose them to the sun. When 
the work is done you will have a print of each, but the thinner 
one from the shade will have recorded the fact in the darker 
print. In short, the sun will have made its own registration of 
its own penetrability. 
Nothing that has been named in the way of apparatus 1s 
expensive in the ordinary sense. Anyone who can afford to 
