HOW SEEDS GEKMIKATE 



I.— HOW SEEDS GEKMINATE.— Part I. 



Teachers and parents are earnestly reminded of the great 

 importance of creating interest in each subject before a formal 

 lesson on that subject is given . Before a lesson on Roots is given, 

 a large number of roots of common weeds should be pulled up 

 and examined by the child. He should be asked to say what he 

 sees in the root before he is allowed to see with the teacher's 

 eye ; to say what he thinks before he gets the teacher's thought ; 

 to suggest his own puzzles about the root before any puzzles are 

 thrust upon him. Then, and not till then, should the orderly 

 lesson be given. 



1. A seed with two seed-leaves. Two seeds lay 

 on a shelf — a seed of wheat and a French bean. 

 They had been forgotten for four years, and they 

 seemed dead as the dust that lay thick upon them. 

 Spruag-cleaning came round, and they were swept out 

 with the dust, and cast upon a garden-bed. Now the 

 earth was dry, and the seeds lay on the ground as 

 lifeless as when they lay on the shelf. Then came a 

 heavy rain, and washed soil over both seeds. A week 

 of cold winds followed ; and the seeds lay still in the 

 damp, cold ground. And then a warm wind blew ; 

 and, two days after, a strange thing happened. The 

 earth was gently pushed aside, and a tiny green 

 shoot thrust itself into the world of light and air ! 

 At first it shot up quite straight (see fig. 7), and 

 looked like a solid green stem ; but, after a few days, 

 it began to unroll. A long green leaf came out ; and 

 then another, and another. It was now clear that the 

 little green shoot was not a solid stem, but a bundle 

 of delicate leaves wrapped tightly round one another 

 so that they could push through the earth into the air. 



