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NATURE STUDY AND AGRICULTURE 



buds come up and gradually unfold. The spring beauty 

 is as good a type as the hepatica with which to follow the 

 development through the entire term. The same outline 

 may be used for this, varying a little to fit the characteristics 

 of the plant. Place a few of the spring beauties in a glass 

 of water in the sunshine. After a time, remove them to a 

 dark corner or turn a box over them to cut off the light. 

 What do they do? Have the children who have any of 

 these growing near their homes watch them as night ap- 

 proaches. Can they find other flowers that close at night ? 

 Dig up a spring beauty. Be sure that you get all that is in 

 the ground. You may have to go down four or five inches. 

 What do you find at the end? This tuber which is like a 

 small potato has in it stored-up food. What is the use of 

 the food? What two things do these plants do every 

 summer to get ready for the next year ? Make buds and 

 store food. 



The violet is a good plant to study for the thick root- 

 stock which contains food, so is the trillium, the mandrake, 

 or May apple. The dog tooth violet and adder's tongue 

 have interesting bulbs from which they send up their pretty 

 mottled leaves. Other common spring plants worth 

 knowing are shooting star, buttercups, wild geranium, 

 anemone, Jack-in-the-pulpit, bellwort, Solomon's seal, 

 blue bells, Dutchman's breeches, and toothwort. 



The autumn flowers are not, as a rule, so attractive to 

 children as the spring flowers. Hewever, they are worth 

 studying, and, like many other things, the better they are 

 known the more attractive they become. 



In many prairie localities where the ground is all under 

 cultivation, only a few remnants of the fall flowers are to 



