SEEDS AND SEEDLINGS 27 
13. To learn: The effect of cold on plant growth. 
Have in a box or flower pot a few seedlings of beans; peas, wheat, 
and corn, and in another a duplicate set of seedlings. Keep one set in 
the warm room and the other in a cool place. Note the difference in 
rapidity of growth. 
If you have this experiment in the spring when thé weather is still 
cold enough, let one set of plants be nipped by the frost. Do all these 
species suffer alike from frost? How does frost affect the young wheat 
plant? Corn? Beans? Peas? 
14. To learn: The result of letting seeds get wet during 
winter. 
Take a dozen kernels of corn, and soak half of them in water for 
several hours. Then put these wet seeds as well as the dry ones ina 
cold place and let them freeze thoroughly. Then plant them and see 
which grow better, those that were dry or those that were wet when they 
froze. 
15. To learn: Is sunlight necessary for germination? Is 
it necessary for plant growth? 
Take two flower pots or small boxes and plant several kernels of corn 
in each. Keep one of them in good light, and keep the other in a dark 
place, or invert a box over it so as to darken it. Do the seeds that 
are kept in the dark come up as soon as the others? Watch them for 
a few weeks after they are up. What is the effect of darkness on grow- 
ing plants? 
16. To learn: Should various kinds of seeds be planted at 
the same depth? 
Take seeds of corn, beans, peas, cucumber, flax, wheat, and radish. 
Plant a few of each kind an inch deep, and a few of each kind two, three, 
four, and five inches deep. Observe results. Which came up first? 
Did all the seeds come up? Which grew the most vigorously ? 
17. To learn: The effect of age on the vitality of seeds. 
Take some wheat or any other seed that is several years old. It is 
desirable to know just how old it is. Plant, say, a hundred kernels 
