560 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, 



COMMONPLACE NOTES. 

 By the Secretary, Superintendent, and Editor. 



Exhibition of Nature Study. 



A Fellow inquires how to set about getting up an exhibition of 

 Nature Study. 



Well, it is very difficult to suggest a scheme for an exhibition in 

 Nature Study, as Nature Study is not a subject, but a point of view ; or, 

 in other words, a method of teaching ; having for its object the training 

 of the observing and reasoning powers of the pupils, by the use of the 

 commonest things they meet with in their everyday life. This being 

 the case, almost everyone who has given attention to the matter has a 

 different conception of the meaning of the term " Nature Study," and ■ 

 the drawing up of a syllabus tends rather to the destruction of the idea 

 than to the furtherance of a desirable method of teaching, which, in its 

 essence, must be original with the teacher and the taught, and very 

 frequently quite informal. However, there are a few directions in which 

 the methods of Nature Study may form good subjects for exhibition. 



For scholars in Elementary and Secondary Schools : 



Nature Calendars, containing the pupil's own observations, and notes. 

 These are of further value if, at the end of the year, the compiler has 

 extracted a gardener's year, a bird year, a flower year, or any other 

 record of the sequence of natural events in any direction. These 

 calendars should always contain notes on the weather. 



Drawings, in outline or in wash, of natural objects made in connection 

 with the object-lessons in school or as records of things seen. 



Essays upon things observed during a school excursion. 



Diaries of work and method in school gardens, with notes on weather, 

 growth of crops, mode of germination of seeds, and so on. 



Collections of plants to illustrate some particular point : 



For instance, methods of climbing found in wild plants or garden 

 plants. Collections of plants from special kinds of soil, as limestone 

 formation, sandy soil, and so on, to illustrate the vegetation of special 

 formations common in the neighbourhood ; or this might be restricted in 

 an agricultural neighbourhood to grasses found growing in particular 

 situations, as shade, ope 4 ^ common, pastures on clay or sand, meadows, 

 mountains, &c. Collections of weeds, to illustrate kinds peculiar to 

 particular crops, means of distribution, habit of growth, manner in 

 which they interfere with the growth of the crop, by, e.g., diminishing 

 the cropped area, appropriating earth salts from the soil, preventing 

 access of light to the developing crop, interfering with root-breathing, 

 checking development of crop by twining or climbing over it, interfering 

 with the seed produce, or by actual consumption of the crop as with 

 the dodder. Collections showing the form of leaf, mode of branching, 



