Miscellaneous. 



174 



[March 1907. 



Several lines of observation of plants could be taken up. One of the first 

 thought of would probably be a consideration of the different kinds of plants to be 

 found on a farm, a city lot or close to a certain strip of road, or if taken up by 

 several persons, the flora of a whole town, district or community. The names can be 

 learned from the teacher or other persons who may have some knowledge of them, 

 or possibly from a manual. A more correct method would be to send specimens of 

 flowers, seed vessels and leaves of the unknown kinds to a professional botanist. In 

 connection with this work, a herbarium or collection of dried specimens could be 

 made in which the plants observed could be preserved for comparison with others 

 and arranged according to their resemblances. The young student would soon 

 learn to pick out representatives of many of the natural families of plants like 

 grasses, legumes, composites, etc. It is a very simple matter to make such a collection 

 by pressing the specimens, which should consist of whole plants, if small enough, 

 or at least contain all the characteristic parts between several thicknesses of 

 newspaper, which should be placed in a pile under a heavy weight, and changed 

 daily until the plants are dry. With each specimen should be kept notes of all that 

 is known about the plant, where it came from, when collected, the comor of the 

 flowers, its abundance or rarity, what kinds of plants grow with it, whether stock 

 eat it or it is useful in any way, or a weed or poisonous ; the kind of soil grown 

 in, the insects found on it or anything interesting in its structure or method of life. 



This collection of plants or notes would furnish a basis for all other botanical 

 observations and studies, and it is hard to do connected work of other kinds with 

 plants, without some knowledge of the species and without some kind of names by 

 which to designate them. Then, too, the acquiring of the names of the plants 

 (common as well as Latin) finds a more proper place in the elementary schools than 

 in the higher institutions, where botany is naturally concerned chiefly with the 

 more important problems of morphology and physiology. These two branches just 

 mentioned should, by no means, be neglected in the work of which this report 

 treats, since they are vitally connected with the practical operations of farm and 

 garden. Many of the common life functions of our cultivated plants, and the 

 structures and the arrangements of roots, stems, wood, bark, leaves, flowers, etc., 

 for the performance of these functions can be delightfully unfolded to young minds 

 by many simple observations or experiments ; the planning of which to avoid 

 possible sources of error in conclusions will give excellent mental training. Some 

 of the advanced problems relating to the manner in which crops live and supply the 

 products desired by man, are of course more complicated and their solution vastly 

 more important than those of the higher mathematics taught for mental training 

 in colleges and universities, but many are simple enough to interest the youngest. 

 A few examples may be mentioned to begin with. 



Can plants move ? Watch a sunflower bud at intervals from morning to 

 night. Observe the manner in which clover leaves close at night. Such obser- 

 vations will also indicate that plants are sensitive to light and other forces and 

 conditions. How do the leaves act ? Test by removing one-half of the leaves from 

 some potato plants, all from others, none from some. What difference in the 

 potatoes produced ? How can it be shown that this is not due to wounding or other 

 cause rather than loss of leaves ? 



Does cold weather or moisture injure seed corn ? Try by keeping some over 

 winter in wet, cold, dry and warm places. Cut a ring of bark off growing branches 

 of different kinds of trees each month, and note the effect next year, as compared 

 with uninjured ones on the same tree. Germinate some garden seeds of different 

 kinds between moist cloths or paper, and watch the process of development 

 and the new organs formed as well as the changes of those already in the seed, 



