56 FIELD AND FOREST. 



outlay for the purchase of specimens from the hot-houses. Seeds can 

 be made to germinate in pots or on moist cotton-batting at any sea- 

 son ; roots, stems, fruits, &c, may be preseived from the summer, as 

 can also leaves in great variety. The winter is a good time for getting 

 over a deal of drudgery always incident to a new study. There are 

 terms that must be learned, and it is better to master them now than 

 to be perplexed by them at a time when field observation calls for our 

 every effort. The skillful teacher, with the adjuncts here mentioned, 

 and with the addition of diagrams and the free use of the blackboard, 

 can advance a class at any season. He must have the instinct of his 

 profession ; that is a quality he can neither purchase nor hire, and if 

 he have it not he had better seek other labor. If he do not discover 

 his unfitness himself he may rest assured that it will be detected for 

 him by others. It is just as true that he will soon learn if he has that 

 power and adaptibility without which success can at least be mode- 

 rate. Long study, skillfull training, patience at all times, gentleness, 

 courtesy — these are a few of the requirements of the laboratory teacher. 



But we have been led into a digression from the subject we pro- 

 posed to discuss. We wish to show how pleasantly the botanist can 

 spend his winter evenings, provided he is not embarrassed by the 

 perpetual struggle for existence. Even in this extreme case he must 

 have hours of recreation, and how can he employ these better than in 

 the delights of science ? 



Let us suppose that we have amassed during the warmer months a 

 collection in various fields. There is the herbarium proper to look 

 after, with the arranging, mounting, labelling, poisoning, necessary 

 to make it all useful. All these steps become interesting, and as we 

 handle the specimens or examine their parts with the microscope, new 

 facts arrest our attention. At the same time, too, we are taking the best 

 possible lessons in classification ; we discover and appreciate the rela- 

 tion more or less remote among families ; we see that some are degra- 

 ded members of a high association ; above all we soon perceive that we 

 cannot draw sharp lines of demarcation, and that nature refuses to 

 adopt herself in all particulars even to the best of our systems. If we 

 turn to pure microscopy where is the limit of our enjoyment? Fungi, 

 algae, ferns, and indeed all orders offer exquisite objects for contem- 

 plation. We need never be alone. A thousand forms of beauty are 



