MANUAL OF NATURE STUDY. 127 



are usually left alone by nature, covered with 

 leaves. Ask the children their experience in win- 

 ter, if they have traveled through the woods. If 

 they have no experience to relate, it will be well to 

 send them through the woods in dead of winter, or 

 better towards spring to find beech nuts, acorns, 

 hickory nuts, walnuts, hazel nuts, crabapples, wild 

 plums, wild grapes, etc. It is more than likely that 

 fully half of the number gathered in this way will 

 have already lost their vitality for germinating, but 

 of those which are alive, nearly all have been nicely 

 covered with leaves as a protection from frost and 

 water. Then, again, the seeds are more or less 

 oily and thus offer resistence to cold and wet. In 

 the majority of cases the outside hull or shuck 

 keeps off the water and sudden frost. 



But there is another kind of fruit that does not fall 

 with the coming of frost. See (2) of this report. 



Many of this kind of fruit open by means of 

 valves, teeth or pores, and frequently the seeds are 

 persistent long after the splitting of the pods. And 

 as these pods generally open at the apex, provision 

 must be made to protect the seeds against rain or 

 snow. 



This is done by a peculiar quality of the pod, 

 which attracts the water in such a way as to form a 

 film of oily nioisture over the seeds, and this film, if 

 left undisturbed, will prevent the water from 



