A normal course in nature-science and agriculture ..

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1904.

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** Every age has its work, every man his mission, and every
generation is a link in the chain of passing events."

The development of Natural Science Study
is the tendency in education at the present time.
Whether we consider it from the standpoint of
science teaching, laboratory work, sense training,
object-study, elements of agriculture, nature
study, etc., the progressive, up-to-date teacher
must grapple with the problem of the selection of
topics for the cultivation of the observing powers
of children and the methods of teaching them, in
order to be in harmony with the scientific civili-
zation in which we live and with the spirit of
modern education.

In addition to this, it is not too much to say
that when the matter of true elementary science
instruction is once understood and made effective,
the very effort put forth in the selection of topics
und in their adaptation to the needs and require-
ments of proper teaching will effect a solution of
many problems in all subjects taught in the public
schools. We refer, of course, to the power the
student thus acquires and its effect upon peda-
gogic methods.

It would be neither interesting nor profitable
to consider the history of this subject from its
obscure beginnings. Doubtless Adam was an ob-
server of natural phenomena, and the primitive

NATURE-SCIENCE

peoples followed Nature, but our study properly
begins with a time when there was at least some
semblance of method in education.

In the history of education among the Greeks
we find that Socrates believed that no science
could be taught ; only drawn out. Aristotle was
well versed in the natural sciences and almost all
these were included in the vast programme of the
instructions he himself gave in the Lyceum ; but,
as his was an aristocratic system of education, it
was restricted to a small minority.

Roman education, too, was literary, ethical
and prudential, rather than scientific, in the time
of Quintilian, Plutarch and Marcus Aurelius.

Religious training was the dominating charac-
ter of the Middle Ages.

The first introduction of what may be called
modern education with special reference to the
study of nature, was in the instruction of Rabe-
lais, (1483-1553), and in his Gargantua, a collec-
tion of pamphlets which appeared early in the
sixteenth century. His pupils were taught to love
and experience nature as well as to know her.

It remained for Comenius, (1592-1671), in the
first half of the seventeenth century, to apply the
principles of modern instruction which embody
natural science study. Comenius said three hun-
dred years ago, ''We must offer to the young, not
the shadow of things, but the things themselves,
which impress the senses and the imagination.
Instruction should commence with a real observa-
tion of things, and not with a verbal description,
of them."

AND AGRICULTURE.

The first classical work of French pedagogy-
was written by Fenelon (1651-1715) in the latter
part of the seventeenth century. In his valuable
treatise, "On the Education of Girls", he dis-
played his knowledge of the aid to be derived
from object lessons. He says : — "Curiosity in chil-
dren is a natural tendency which comes as the
precursor of instruction. Do not fail to take ad-
vantage of it. For example, in the country they
see a mill, and they wish to know what it is.
They should be shown the manner of preparing
the food that is needed for human use. They
notice harvesters, and what they are doing should
be explained to them; also, how the wheat is
sown, and how it multiplies in the earth."

No event in the eighteenth century is fraught
with more importance to the educational world
than the publication of Rousseau's Emile. The
whole would bear quoting, for all his recommen-
dations contain at least an element of truth. In
reference to the physical sciences he says: "You
are looking for globes, spheres, maps. What ma-
-chines! Why all these representations? Why
not begin by showing him the object itself?"
And again : "Do not treat the child to discourses
which he cannot understand. No descriptions, no
eloquence, no figures of speech. Be content to
present to him appropriate objects. Let us
transform our sensations into ideas. Let us al-
ways proceed slowly from one sensible notion to
another. In general let us never substitute the
sign for the thing, except when it is impossible
for us to show the thing."

NATURE-SCIENCE

In Germany, from the opening of the eight-
eenth century, "a change for the better takes
place. Ideas become facts. The importance of ed-
ucation bocomes more and more recognized ; ped-
agogy shakes off the latent dust of the school
and interests itself in actual life."

The beginning of a more liberal spirit was
with Basedow (1723-1790). The criticism upon his
work, however, is that the use of object lessons
was overdone.

A review of the life and work of Pestalozzi
would be helpful, as embodying and establishing
in a very large measure, the principles of modern
educational ideas. "We can give only a brief ref-
erence to this celebrated educator.

It is, perhaps, in the institute at Burgdorf
(1802), that we see exemplified most satisfactorily
the natural method of instruction * 'which makes
the child proceed from his own intuitions, and
leads him by degress and through his own efforts,
to abstract ideas." Natural history was studied
during walks and in the fields. Practically the
same methods were pursued at Yverdun (1805-
1825).

'"To popularize science" was one of the five
essentials in Pestalozzi 's system as distinguished
by the philanthropist, Fischer ; two of the remain-
ing four essentials may be construed to have ref-
erence to the principles involved in elementary
science-teaching.

Pestalozzi said of his own work, "My method
is but a refinement of the processes of nature."
A more modern writer has even ventured the crit-

AND AGRICULTURE.

icism that he refined too much, since he some-
times made an abuse of sense intuition.

Froebel, who had spent two years at Y verdun
with Pestalozzi, was in most respects, his faithful
follower. Greard, in his study of the method of
Froebel, places the taste for observation as the
first aspiration of a child. It is evident, also,
that Froebel places nature above everything else
in the elements of education. He says : "Teach-
ers should scarcely let a week pass without taking
to the country a part of their pupils. They shall
walk with them as father among his children, —
in making them observe and admire the varied
richness which nature displays to their eyes at
each season of the year."

Among English writers of the nineteenth
century, Herbert Spencer made a notable step
toward a rational pedagogy in his book on Educa-
tion. In this work he makes science the basis of
education and emphasizes its importance in family
life as well as in aesthetic education. He also
shows that for moral education, as well as for in-
tellectual, the method Avhich approaches nature
nearest is also the best.

Mention may be made also of the work of
Alexander Bain on Education as a Science. Al-
though his ideas of education have been criticized
as exclusively scientific, they are evidently sin-
cere and his book possesses the merits of a studied
analysis and scholarly minuteness which have
doubtless helped to shape the present tendency
towards scientific thought.

In America, we might point to an array of

.18 NATURE-SCIENCE

leaders in advanced pedagogical methods, notably
the late Col. Francis W. Parker, Dr. W.T. Harris
and others, whose recognition and adaptation of
the methods having Nature Study for a founda-
tion are well known and not without far-reaching
influence in the educational world.

It will be seen that educational ideas, as re-
lating to certain first principles, are of long stand-
ing. It will be naturally inferred that any ten-
dency in modern educational thought is toward
the putting into practice rules deduced from these
first principles.

We believe the present century will carry
forward processes simplified during the past cen-
tury, and elementary science has a place pecu-
liarly and peremptorily its own in the general
scheme of educational progress. More than this,
we believe that most studies may be more ad-
vantageously pursued by making application of
the methods employed in scientific instruction;
that preliminary work in the training of the mind
by the use of natural objects is the best prepara-
tion for most studies that are to follow.

A learner's introduction to the world in which
he lives must come through the senses. He has
a right to know about the earth and the living
things it supports, since his well-being and his
usefulness depend upon this knowledge ; and the
proper training in observation, sense-training, if
you please, by personal contact and experience
with the forms and forces which constitute and
govern the universe is the only way in which he
<;an acquire this knowledge.

AND AGRICULTURE.

One purpose accomplished in natural science
study is the formation of habits of close observa-
tion. The senses become developed, acute and
strong ; materials for a comparison in future work
are acquired; a spirit of inquiry and investiga-
tion is aroused ; the laws of nature are discovered ;
the utilities of natural products are revealed.

A natural result is a gradual comprehension
of the system and order prevalent in the universe,
which in maturer work we know as scientific
classification.

It is altogether in keeping with the results of
such study to say that the mental powers make a
steady, healthful growth, and there is satisfactory
progress in the attainment of exactness and free-
dom in expression, a natural result of thoughtful
consideration and an observant mind replete with
facts.

It has been conclusively shown, too, that after
preliminary science work, carried forward in a
systematic way, advanced pupils have gone to the
study of books with ease and profit.

It is not difficult to conceive that much plea-
sure and happiness may be the result of contact
with the beautiful and the true, in both the or-
ganic and the inorganic, in nature ; that this will
have a tendency, through wise encouragement and
direction, to keep out low pleasures during the
formative period of childhood, and so foster,
largely, an interest in pure and ennobling things
which will extend into mature life. This is the
testimony of those instructors who have tested the
matter, and more than all, it is exemplified in the

10 NATURE-SCIENCE

lives of many of the pupils who have had the ad-
vantages of such teaching.

The broad aim of science studies is stated by
an excellent authority on this subject as "a re-
sponsive insight into nature, an interested under-
standing of the materials and activities of her
great workshop, and appreciation of the variety,
beauty, harmony and law of nature's handiwork."
Another makes "the unity of science, with life
the central study," the basal idea upon which his
work has been prepared.

We quote from Joseph Payne (''The Curricu-
lum of Modern Education," pp. 18, 19): "If
science, then, is to constitute a real discipline for
the mind, much, nay everything, will depend on
the manner in which it is studied. In the first
place, it is to be remembered that the pupil is
about to study things, not words ; and therefore
treatises on science are not, in the first instance,
to be placed before him. He must commence
with the accurate examination of the objects and
phenomena themselves, not of descriptions of them
prepared by others. By this means, not only will
his attention be excited, the power of observation
previously awakened, much strengthened, and the
senses exercised and disciplined, but the very im-
portant habit of doing homage to the authority of
facts, rather than to the authority of men, be
initiated. These different objects and phenomena
may be placed and viewed together and thus the
mental habits of comparison and discrimination
may be usefully practiced. They may, in the next
place, be methodically arranged and classified,

AND AGRICULTURE. 11

and thus the mind may become accustomed to an
orderly arrangement of its knowledge. Then the
accidental may be distinguished from the essen-
tial, the common from the special, and so the
habit of generalization may be acquired; and
lastly, advancing from effects to causes, or con-
versely from principles to their necessary conclu-
sions, the pupil becomes acquainted with induc-
tion and deduction — processes of the highest
value and importance. It is no small advantage,
moreover, that this kind of study affords, both in
in its pursuit and in its results — both in the chase
and the capture — a very large amount of legiti-
mate and generous mental pleasure, and of a kind
which the pupil will probably be desirous of re-
newing for himself after he has left school."

These are quoted as the words of a leader in
educational thought who wrote and wrought for
thinking, progressive teachers of the present
generation; they are fraught with significance and
replete in suggestion for the work we have in
hand.

The outline of work which follows is arranged
for the purpose of suggesting topics which may be
used to advantage.

The subject of agriculture is so intimately
connected with elementary science that a portion
of each paper will be devoted to that particular
phase of the study. It deals with living nature
and all lines of elementary science may be easily
studied in connection with it.

Peculiar circumstances or conditions will de-
termine largely the development of any topic by

12 NATURE-SCIENCE

«ach individual. The earnest teacher will be on
the alert, always, to obtain other material, as
well as to be thoroughly informed, not only as to
the topic under discussion, but upon the devices
adapted to the proper development of the topic,
so that his pupils may be led to a solution of the
problems for themselves. To this end the teacher
should keep constantly in mind any necessary pre-
paration on the part of the pupil, adapting the
nature and amount of work done to the con-
ditions, as well as to the age and capabilities of
the pupils.

The pupils should be brought, as nearly as
possible, in direct contact with nature, and only
such work should be assigned as they can either
do for themselves, or at least take the leading
part in doing. It should be remembered that the
principal object is to lead pupils to rely on their
own powers ; the teacher should furnish the proper
opportunities and guidances, when such are
necessary.

First Lesson.

Distinguish between plants and animals.
Both are organic, i. e., made up of organs; both
have life ; both breathe ; both require food ;
(What difference in the way they take their
food?) Both are made up of tiny cells very much
alike. (The chief difference between the cells of
vegetables and those of animals is that vegetable
cells grow together without any substance be-
tween them, and animal cells generally have a
second substance connecting them). It is well,

AND AGRICULTURE. IS

also, to develop the terms nucleus, and proto-
plasm in connection with the animal cell.

ANIMALS.

Birds. — Note what the birds are doing in your
locality at this time, and in what respects the
young birds resemble their parents as to appear-
ance and actions. Observe what birds have dis-
appeared that you noticed during the summer.
Keep a memorandum of the times of migration of
any birds and try to discover why the influence
which cause some birds to migrate have no such
effect on others.

Insects. — Watch the ant at work ; the care of
ants for young. Collect as many caterpillars as
possible ; watch their manner of eating, growth,
moulting, spinning of cocoon at formation of
chrysalides. Study insects especially with refer-
ence to their manner of eating. Different kinds
of mouths different insects have. Learn chief
differences between those which spend their time
in the open air and those that live under stones,
logs, etc. ; ex., differences between butterflies
and beetles. Find what insects must have liquid
food, and what ones can take solid food. Learn
all that is possible about the way the butterfly
gets its food (how, and from what). Compare a
butterfly's flight with that of a bird, and try to
account for the difference.

Different kinds of beetles should be studied.
They may be kept under stones in a box with
dirt. The potato beetle is especially interesting
for detailed study. Many beetles and their

14 NATURE-SCIENCE

larvae may be found in old stumps or under the
loose bark of trees. Study their structure and
learn their life history in such a way that you
may be able to give important facts in an inter-
esting way to pupils when necessary to interest
them or to supplement their work.

Study the lady beetle. Water beetles are
also very interesting subjects of study. Obtain
specimens and watch their manner of swimming,
the way they breathe under water, adaptation of
structure to habits, etc.

It is suggested also that the larrae of the
milkweed butterfly and also the eggs are, in most
localities, available for study. Examine the eggs
with reference to form, color, etc. Watch closely
for the appearance of the young larvae, note their
growth, manner of moulting, etc. The ways by
which larvae protect themselves from their ene-
mies will make an interesting topic for a class
lesson.

For a grade of class work above the primary,
probably the fifth or sixth school year's work, it
would be well to make a special topic of the rela-
tion of animal life to plants.

Several kinds of insect galls may be found on
plants. A collection of as many kinds as possible
should be made. Develop (a) the way galls are
formed; (b) object of formation of galls, as pro-
tection, food; (c) different kinds of galls.

No opportunity should be lost from the very
beginning to inculcate lessons with reference to
animal protection.

In higher grades of work, the structure of

AND AGRICULTURE. 15

some typical insect, as the grasshopper, may well
be taken up, and some attempt at least may be
made in classification. Life habits of typical in-
sects should receive due attention and there
should be frequent reviews on this point.

Collect caterpillars (larvae) of different kinds
and place them in small boxes covered with light
netting. Feed them with the leaves of the plant
on which they were found. Study them and note
their development.

Worms. — Observe how worms plug their bur-
rows with leaves, etc. Why? Note any other
interesting facts in connection with their actions
and habits.

Tadpoles. — Note the different stages of devel-
opment in which tadpoles are to be found ; how
they breathe; what they eat; what enemies they
have.

Plants. — The plant as a whole. Study the
plant, for the most part, out of doors. The sub-
ject is best introduced to children ,by means of
stories as far as possible. The use of a plant, its
work, etc., should be developed before the plant
is studied in detail.

Parts of a plant: — 1. Root — Use, (a) to feed
plant; (b) to hold plant in position. Kinds, (a)
Fleshy; (b) Fibrous. Functions — gripping, stor-
age. (At this time do only elementary work in
the study of plants.)

2. Stem— 1. Use; 2. What it is made of;
(a) woody material; (b) juicy material. Com-
pare as to shape. Outside and inside growers —
compare corn and maple.

16 NATURE-SOIENCE

3. Leaves — Kinds, shapes, parts.

4. Flower — Parts, use. Study fall flowers,
simple and composite.

Study for special topic the spread of plant
life — (1) by the scattering of seeds ; (2) by growth
of underground stem

1. Scattering of seeds — (a) seeds carried by
wind; (b) plants carried by wind; (c) distribu-
tion by animals. Note in each case the locality
in which the plant grows; whether the plant is
solitary or social; the method by which it will
be likely to be most widely distributed ; what per
cent of the seeds produced make new plants ;
differences in numbers of seeds produced by
plants growing in wet and dry regions.

2. The underground stem. Differences be-
tween annuals and perennials should be explained
by illustration. Roots of perennials may be ex-
amined and new buds seen. What conditions can
a plant propagating by means of an underground
stem meet more successfully than a plant propa-
gating by seeds?

What is a weed? Why do weeds spread more
readily than cultivated plants?

Conditions affecting the life of any plant;
(1) water; (2) heat; (3) soil.

Study as many different kinds of flowers as
possible, noting kinds of insects that frequent
flowers and adaptation for fertilization. The
form, colorization, etc., always have some signifi-
cance.

Note adaptation for cross fertilization ; ripen-
ing of stamens and pistil of the same flower at

AND AGRICULTURE. 17

different times. Make list of insects that visit
flowers — bees, butterfles, flies, beetles, ants, etc.

Study also in their adaptation for insects — 1.
(a) provisions of food; (b) attractive color; (c)
odor; (d) form and position of parts; 2. con-
trivance for excluding unwelcome visitors — (a)
hairs on stems; (b) sticky substance on stems;
(c) arrangement of parts of flower to prevent en-
trance of creeping insects. Are any plants free
from insects? Why?

Select a number of fleshy fruits for study and
note in what respect they are alike. Learn the
meaning, relations and structure of the following
terms : Pericarp, epicarp, endocarp, mesocarp,
sarcocarp, embryo, cell, ovary, dissepiments,
placenta.

Note different colors of fruits and colors at
different stages of development; appropriateness
of color to the particular fruit ; parts most highly
colored.

Keep in mind the wild state of the fruits in ac-
counting for the characteristics. Note parts de-
veloped by cultivation. What parts of the flower
form the fruit in each kind of fruit studied?

Physics. — Make experiments in refraction of
light, using a simple prism. Call attention to the
changes the prism makes in the ray of light,
breaking it up into a number of rays of different
colors. The fact that the colored rays vary in
their deviation from a straight line with the sun-
light that enters the prism is due to their differ-
ent wave lengths after entering the denser me-
dium. Note which rays are nearest a straight

18 NATURE-SCIENCE

line with the sunlight, and which are farthest
from it. See how many colors can be distin-
guished.

Make simple experiments in magnetism, such
as placing a magnet under a paper on which are
placed some iron filings. Notice that each parti-
cle of the iron becomes a perfect magnet, also
note the peculiar action of the filings when the
magnet is moved beneath the paper. Magnetize
a needle and by properly adjusting it upon a cork
floating on water, or by thrusting it through a
cork and suspending by a thread, show the prop-
erties of the magnetic needle. All the phenomena
it exhibits, as well as practical applications of the
same, may be developed as the occasion and the
advancement of the learner admit, such as the
direction it assumes; the fact that after magnetiza-
tion it will not balance at the same point as before
(the dip of the needle) ; the action of the magnet
on each end of the needle ; which pole of the
needle is attracted by the north pole of magnet
and which by the south pole ; idea of compass ;
directions shown by needle ; direction of wind ;
direction toward various places, etc., use in test-
ing for iron and steel, etc.

Chemistry: — Study and observe phenomena of
fermentation. This can be done by placing a small
quantity of sweet cider in several bottles, placing
these subject to different conditions, and noting
which conditions are most favorable to changes
which will thus be illustrated during fermenta-
tion.

Alcoholic fermentation produces what is known

AND AGRICULTURE. 19

as ''hard" cider. This change is due to the yeast
plant which breaks up by its growth the sugar of
the sweet cider into alcohol, carbonic acid gas,
etc. Afterward, the change to vinegar is known
as acetic fermentation.

Note the taste and color of the cider when
first prepared. Some bottles should be left open,
others corked ; some in a warm, others in a cool
place, etc. The bubbles which rise from the
liquid during fermentation contain carbonic acid
gas. The action of a flame, as from a lighted
taper, when placed in a vessel partly filled with
the fermenting liquid, or by forcing some of the
^as into lime water and noting the change.

Meteorology.

A weather record should be prepared and kept
throughout the year. The design is to draw at-
tention to the climatic changes from day to day.
The records should be kept in a book, using one
page for each month. From the daily mean tempera-
ture compute the mean temperature for the month.

A convenient form for a weather record, sug-
gested by the Illinois State Course of Study, is
made by ruling one column of the page for the
date; another section under temperature should
be ruled into four columns, one to give the read-
ing of the thermometer at 9 a. m., one at noon,
one at 4 p. m. and the fourth the mean or average
reading; a third section ruled into three columns
should indicate the direction of the wind ; another
like section should be marked "Clouds"; and an-
other "Rain or Snow"; in all of which data as to

20 NATURE-SCIENCE

these particulars may be indicated for the three
times of the day by an appropriate symbol.

GEOLOGICAL STUDIES.

Soils. — Influence on Vegetation; (1) by the
character of food supply; (2) by the temperature'
afforded to the roots.

Physical differences of soil ; (1) coarse or fine ;
(2) porous or compact. Which have greater food-
furnishing power, fine soils or coarse soils? Why?'
Which are more easily cultivated, porous soils or
compact soils?

What difference between these two kinds of
soils as to moisture? As to heat?

Soils are formed by fine particles of rock
mixed with decaying animal or vegetable sub-
stances, hence they vary in the proportions of
plant food. Therefore, all soils are not chemically
the same.

Clay soils are formed from decomposition of
slate and various rocks, including volcanic rocks.
The latter contains more or less of a mixture of
sand and mica.

Marl is a soil whose mixture consists of car-
bonate of lime, clay and sand, in very variable
proportions, and accordingly known as calcareous,
clayey or sandy limestone. Soils are marly if sand
is present, as are those whose base is sandstone if
carbonate of lime was the cementing material as
is usually the case.

Loam is a mixture of clay and sand with or-
ganic matter.

Soils are called native if their base is formedi

AND AGRICULTURE. 21

from the decomposition of the parent rock below
them ; foreign if they have been washed or drifted
from the place of disintegration of the parent
rock. Nearly all the soil of the Northern States
is foreign.

Agriculture. — (L. agri. genitive of ager, a field,
and culture, to till, to cultivate.) Culture of a
field is the term applied to the business of raising
farm or field products, including, of course, the
'disposition of the products in the markets. Farm-
ing and husbandry are terms used in the similar
sense, although their use, usually, is restricted to
the practical phase of this most fundamental of
occupations.

Agriculture contributes to the well-being of
the civilized world mostly in the way of food pro-
duction. Although the general subject may be
-divided and subdivided into a variety of special
subjects, we shall aim to give the essentials in a
general way to cover the most important portions
of it, dealing with the principles which govern in
the practical application of the term agricuiture.

The consideration of the subject must begin
with the soil, as that is the source of the produc-
tion of agricultural wealth which may be con-
trolled or modified to meet required conditions.
The other sources, not subject to control, are the
atmosphere and sunlight.

Soil is composed of the fragments of rock,
primarily mixed with organic matter, that is, the
remains of plants and animals. It is evident that
the nature of soil, then, depends upon the amount,
the condition and the kind of rock which forms its

32 NATURE-SCIENCE

basis, and the amount of moisture and organic
matter it contains.

The process of weathering, by means of which
rock waste falls from cliff's and other elevations, and
rolls, washes and settles down to lower levels, de-
pressions, etc., is a familiar one.

Most movements of land wastes are so slow
that they are not noticed. Their importance is
understood when we reflect that many land forms
result from the removal of waste.

This rock waste is due to a number of processes,
as, changes of temperature, the expansion of
water as it freezes in the crevices of the rock,
chemical changes under the action of water and
air, erosion by streams, etc.

The action, both as to the formation and to-
the removal of waste, is greatest near the surface,
since the agencies are obviously more effective
here. Then again, on gentle surface slopes, such.
as plains, the waste may become deep, since it&
removal is slow, and the particles become finer
because of longer exposure and the result is a fine
deep soil of great advantage to many forms of
vegetation. Examples of this class of soil are
abundant in the alluvial ''bottoms" of the Mis-
sissippi valley.

A contrast, too, in the fertility of soil weath-
ered from limestone and that in which sandstone
is the base, may be observed in certain regions as
in Central Kentucky and in Western Tennessee.
The limestone soil is fertile, while that on the
sandstone is comparatively barren.

The value of farming lands, then, depends

AND AGRICULTURE. 23

upon whether they lie on rocks that yield rich or
poor soils, or whether they lie in a position to re-
ceive transported soils which have escaped the
vigilance of the farmer who occupies the neigh-
boring uplands.

There are some soils which have an almost
purely organic origin. This is true of most SAvamps,
peat bogs, etc., formed by decayed water plants.
The little mineral matter contained in such soils
is that which comes mainly from the plants which
grow therein.

Growing plants facilitate the work of soil-mak-
ing in several ways: (1) Their roots are sent
between the layers of rock and into the crevices
of the rocks themselves and their great expansive
power crowds the rocks apart and breaks them to
fragments. (2) The acids in the root glands also
dissolve the rock and earthy matter. (3) The
decaying plants, as well as the animal matter,
form mold, also, which makes the soil mellow and
renders it chemically fit for plant food while it
aids in the retention of moisture, in the admission
of the air, and in other processes.

In addition to this, bacteria have much to do
with the decomposition and enrichment of the
soil, for it is now known that they penetrate into
the soil and exist there as well as upon its sur-
face. (We shall discuss micro-organisms more
fully in relation to other subjects.)

Thus the soil is prepared and the materials
for plant food are made ready in nature. It re-
mains for the husbandman to see that proper con-
ditions for plant life are maintained, or in other

24 NATURE-SOIENCE

words, to make successful application of human
endeavor to the production of plant life without
impoverishing the soil.

CHARACTER AND COMPOSITION OF THE SOIL.

Plants require food, and the soil is their great
food store-house. This food is not always present
in the soil in the form which the plants can use ;
sometimes there is none at all where it is most
needed. The problem for progressive farm-
ers is to supply these deficiencies where possible.

In addition to what has already been said as
to the soil formation — the mixture of rock dust
and decayed organic life — we must consider also,
in the requirement for plant life, soil moisture
and soil atmosphere. The atmosphere the soil pro-
vides ; the plant contains more water vapor, more
nitrogen, and more carbon dioxid than that re-
quired for the sustenance of animal life.

The plant receives from the soil plant-food
containing from one per cent to ten per cent of its
weight of the following elements : Phosphorus,
nitrogen, iron, sulphur, potassium, calcium, mag-
nesium, chlorine, silica and sodium. It also re-
ceives from the air, through its leaves, from
ninety to ninety-nine per cent of its weight of car-
bon, hydrogen and oxygen.

It is easily seen that a proper preparation of
plant-food that is taken in through the roots nec-
essarily requires that there must be circulation of
the atmosphere in the soil.

Most soils contain the necessary elements, but
it is possible for plants to grow, in a partially

AND AGRICULTURE. 25

starved way, in the soils where some of these ele-
ments do not exist, or where they are not in
proper proportion. The favorable growth of plants
depends upon the condition of the soil and the
composition of the food elements.

These elements are not used by the plants
separately, but are absorbed when in composition
with other elements. For example, the plant ab-
sorbs ammonia and thus secures its most import-
ant food, nitrogen, in combination with hydrogen,
which it also needs. Nitrogen is given to the soil
by decaying organic matter through nitrifying
ferments or bacteria, and by leguminous plants,
as clover, alfalfa, cow-peas, etc. These plants
supply nitrogen through the agency of bacteria,
or germs, that live in the nodules of the roots and
exract the nitrogen from the air and fix it in the
soil as a compound.

The next most important element is phospho-
ric acid, which renders the plant fruitful and
hardy. It is the most important mineral constit-
uent of the soil and is used to a great extent by
the cereals. It is supplied to the plant through
decaying vegetation or through bones, etc., which
have been prepared by acids to make phosphoric
acid soluble (acid phosphate.)

Potash, which makes starch and woody tissue,
hence needed by fruit trees and root plants, may
be supplied by applying wood ashes to the soil.
Barnyard manures also supplies potash in a soluble
state.

Oxygen is found in a free state in the soil.

26 NATUEE-SCIENOE

and also in combination with nearly all the other
elements.

Hydrogen is foud in combination in the soil.
Combined with oxygen it forms water, absolutely
necessary to plant life and growth.

Carbon is a part of the organic matter in the
soil. It unites with oxygen and passes back into
the air in the process of decay. It is obtained by
plants mainly from the carbon dioxid of the air
through the leaves and other green parts.

Iron exists in the soil both in a free state
and in combination. It is quite abundant in most
soils, and while it adds nothing to the plant tissue
it is thought to stimulate plant growth. The
disease known as "chlorosis", or the production
of yellow foliage instead of normal green leaves,
has for its most common cause the lack of availa-
ble iron — either its absence altogether from the
soil, or the failure of the roots to dissolve and ab-
sorb such compounds as may be present.

OUTLINE QUIZZES.

[first paper.]

1. How early in the world's history did sci-
ence study receive consideration?

2. Name two prominent men among the
Greeks who believed in science teaching. Two
Romans?

3. What may be considered the first intro
duction to elementary science study?

4. What were the ideas of Comenius on this
subject? Of Fenelon?

. AND AGEICULTURE. 2T

6. How did German educational ideas take
this tendency?

6. How were Pestalozzi's classes introduced?

7. What importance did Froebel attach to
nature? Herbert Spencer?

8. Name some prominent American educa-
tors who recognize the importance of nature study?

9. What IS sense training? How secured?

7* Sow does elementary science work con-
tribute to the accomplishment of better work in
other studies?

^ 11. What is the broad aim of elementary
science study? Some special aims?

12. How should this work be carried out?

13. How much of the work should be done
by the teacher? By the pupils?

14. What are the main differences between
plants and animals?

15 What is agriculture? Why should this
subject be studied in schools?
^ 16. Why does the consideration of this sub-
ject begin with the soil?

17. How do plants assist in soil making?

18. What can you say of bacteria in their re-
lation to the soil?

19. What are the soil elements necessary to
plant growth? ^

20. What is the function of iron in the soil?

[second paper.]

''And the value of all things exists^ not indeed in themselves^
but man's use of them, feeding man's need/'

SECOND LESSON.
Animals.

Birds. — Study for this lesson the migration of
birds. It is interesting to note that some, as
those which nest in the far northern portion of
this continent, travel a very long distance to reach
their winter abode in the Southern States^
Others which nest in that region winter in the-
northern part of the United States, and still others^
nesting in the middle and western states, are only-
summer residents spending their winters in the
Southern States, and some even as far south as
South America, then again there are others which
have a permanent abode in the locality where
they nest, adapting themselves to all the climatic
changes, while still others which were at one time
migratory, now remain throughout the winter.
Some, hardy enough to remain throughut the win-
ter, migrate, and others seem to indulge their fancy,
going or remaining according to seeming whim.
Robins and bluebirds are examples of the latter..

The cause of migration is explained in various
ways. The first is to seek a change of climate,
going south to avoid severe cold. Such birds re-
turn northward in the spring doubtless to separate
themselves, to conceal their nest, during the time
of nesting. In such cases the young birds-

so NATURE-SOIENCE

especially would have a tendency to remain in
their native region until driven southward by cold
and famine, especially the latter. When food is
abundant it is well known that many southern
birds learn to endure the rigorous nothern winters.

Another theory of migration is based on the
hypothesis that many birds north of the equator
originated on the continents near the north pole
at a period when that region was tropical in
■climate as it may be clearly proved to have been.
As the conditions changed and the earth there
became ice-covered, the birds could not temper
themselves to the climate and the ice fields
afforded them no food. They were therefore
forced to flee southward. As the ice fields receded
with the summer, the birds would move north-
ward and build their nests as near as possible to
their old location. In this way we may say the
habit was established, and now, while climatic
changes are more regular and conditions more per-
manent, many birds continue to follow it.

Still other causes of migration may be found
in a necessity for new food fields, in the fear
caused by the wholesale slaughter of certain
species, in some localities, and a desire for variety
or a roving disposition on the part of some birds.

Pupils should be encouraged to continue ob-
servations on the migration of birds in their
particular locality and note the same with any
peculiarities, as, (1) those peculiar to that region
which migrate first in the fall; (2) those which
remain longer than usual with probable reason for
BO doing ; (3) those ordinarily migratory but now

AND AGRICULTURE. 31

remaining throughout the winter, etc. We quote
from a recent article by an authority on this sub-
ject of the migration of birds :

'*The present international study of bird
migration is not only in many particulars the
greatest concerted scientific inquiry ever insti-
tuted, but it is the most baffling subject that
naturalists have ever undertaken to exploit.
Many of the most eminent among the current in-
vestigators reject all previous deductions in re-
gard to the causes of migration. Fear of cold and
hunger has been assigned as the motive that
prompts birds to leave the north in wintertime ;
but contemporaneous ornithologists cannot accept
this unqualifiedly, for vast multitudes are known
to depart from regions in which no such contin-
gency prevails. Moreover, species of the limicolae
and other genera instead of stopping when they
reach congenial north temperate latitudes press
on and on, enter the tropics, cross the equator,
and do not rest until they find in the south tem-
perate zone conditions of climate and supplies of
food exactly like those passed in north temperate
regions. Longing for the old nesting-place has
been assigned by many writers as the secret of
the birds' return over seas and continents to the
spot of their nativity, but this, modern naturalists
point out, does not account for the amazing fact
that nestlings of many species in the autumn
migration leave the parental home months in ad-
vance of the old birds, and without a pilot, spread
their young wings and start on voyages from two

32 NATUKE-SOIENCE

to nine thousand miles in length, arriving safely
at the ordained winter home.

Neither can the love of birds for their mates
be accepted as the dominating purpose of migra-
tion, for in the case of nestlings, in whom the in-
stinct of world-journeying is so strong that they
embark without a captain and when their wings
are but a few weeks old, there is no lure of a tryst
in the far corners of the earth to explain their
amazing pilgrimage. Some French naturalists
have decided that it is a craving for more light
that prompts a flight tow^ard the south when the
days shorten in the north countries.

Another view is that bird migration is a proof
of the polar origin of life. As the North Pole
cooled, life developed, some of it evolving into
bird forms, and there began to be a slight move-
ment toward warmer areas in the winters.
Gradually the earth cooled throughout, the bird
migrations extending, and now, except in the case
of certain acclimated species, there is spontaneous
return in spring toward the primitive fountains of
all world life. Inasmuch, however, as recent ex-
plorations indicate that certain birds summer in
Antarctic regions, the North Pole theory would ap-
pear to be in need of revision.

After years of study devoted to the topic,
Professor Alfred Newton, of Cambridge, stated in
1878 that without doubt, bird migration is the
greatest mystery in the entire animal kingdom —
"a mystery," he added, "that can be no more ex-
plained by the modern man of science than by the
simple-minded savage of antiquity."

AND AGRICULTURE. 33

In spite of all their accumulated knowledge
on the subject, the most progressive ornithologists
confess that the facts of bird migration are as incom-
prehensible as if these restless wanderers had sud-
denly arrived from some distant planet. The
latest theories overturn previous deductions, many
of the observers now claiming that none of the
visible marks of the earth's configuration guide
the birds at the times of their migrations along
aerial routes, sometimes three miles above the
walks of man. Though Doctor Gatke takes the
lead in setting forth many of these phenomena,
he makes no pretense of solving the riddle. In
regard to the problem of the altitude and velocity
of bird flight Capt. F. W. Hutton says, in his
Mechanical Principles Involved in the Sailing
Flight of the Albatross, that in a perfectly calm
atmosphere this bird with outstretched wings
would drop, unless it were also executing a for-
ward movement. Doctor Gatke, however, sum-
ming up his lifelong studies, says : "My observa-
tions are so much at variance with all explana-
tions based on known mechanical laws that I am
obliged to consider the question of migratory
flight as yet an unsolved and perfectly open one."

Insects. — The grasshopper may be taken as a
study of the typical insect for anatomical exami-
nation. Remember, we are studying life through
its manifestations in the organic part of our work,
and the teacher should lead the pupil to select
data from which intelligent conclusions are to be
drawn. One of the main ideas of this work is the
comprehension of natural laws, phenomena, etc.,

34 NATURE-SCIENCE ^

■and there is less danger of loss of time and energy
if there is some attempt to study types with a
view to preparation for classification.

The grasshopper should be studied first in the
"fields ; his movements, his habitat, his food, his
means of protection, etc., should be noted. Dead
•specimens should then be examined for the char-
«.cteristic parts of insects. Eggs of the grass-
hopper may be obtained by putting some grass-
hoppers in a box containing moist dirt and fresh
grass. The eggs will be deposited in the dirt.

Comparisons may be made between the grass-
hopper and the cricket, the katydid, etc. Try to
.account for contrasts in color of these insects.

BOTANICAL STUDIES.

Study plant stems. 1. Their functions; (a)
To support the plant; (b) To supply the leaves of
^he plant with water. In connection with the
«tudy of the first function different plants should
be examined and comparisons made as to the
relative development of the woody tissue, color,
thickness, etc., of bark, arrangement of leaves on
the stems, etc. Collections of specimens of differ-
ent kinds of stems in the locality should be en-
couraged. These may be sufficiently light to be con-
veniently and tastefully mounted, and while the
main body of each specimen may show exterior
characteristics, one extremity may be so trimmed
as to exhibit cross section and the other longi-
tudinal section of each stem.

Experiments may be made in connection with
the study of the second function to show that water

AND AGRICULTURE. 35

will rise in the stem : (a) Wrap the wilted leaf
of a plant, as a twig of geranium, closely in tissue
paper, leaving the lower part of the stem exposed.
Place the stem in water and presently the ex-
pansion of the leaves, caused by the rise of the
water through the stem, will burst the paper.
{h) Place one end of a piece of cornstalk in colored
water. After a time it will be seen that the col-
oring matter is diffused through the stem.

2. Study the structure of stems with relation
to their performance of these two functions : (a)
The use of woody tissue; (b) Different arrange-
ment of fibro-vascular tissue; (c) Compare the
cornstalk with the maple stem and note the dif-
ferent ways these stems increase in size, and lead
pupils to understand that the one is outside
.grower (exogen), and the other an inside grower
(endogen); (d) Call attention to difference in
venation. (Do not hesitate to introduce technical
terms after facts are learned.) (e) Study function
of the bark and call attention to the rings of
■exogens.

Seeds. — Make also a special study of nature's
methods and arrangements for the protection and
dispersion of seeds. Show in this connection that
the chief object in the life of a plant is to per-
petuate its species, and to that end the perfecting
■of the seed is the principal necessity. Call atten-
tion to the protection the plant gives to its seed
and carefully prepare a series of lessons on how
how plants scatter their seeds, permitting the
pupils to make their own discoveries as far as
possible. Encourage pupils to make collections

36 NATURE-SCIENCE

and after examination and comparison make lists
and drawings of winged seeds, as the maple
feathery or downy seeds, as the thistle, and
hooked seeds, as the cockle bur, sand bur, etc.

Show the scattering of seeds, first, as carried
by the wind. Such seeds, it will be seen, usually
have thin, downy attachments, or wings which,
serve as sails to waft them forward. Among the
former are the familiar dandelion seeds, milk
weed pods enclosing a silken mass, the thistle,
the fireweed, the goldenrod, asters, wild lettuce,
wild clematis, the cat-tail, etc. Among the latter-
will be found the seeds of the maple, the elm, the
pine, the ash, etc.

Second, seeds scattered by water, may be
discussed in an interesting and instructive way^
Seeds of plants growing in the water should be
examined, if possible ; the seeds of the white and
the yellow water-lilies, it will be noticed, contain
air-bubbles which keep them afloat for a consider-
able length of time. Wild rice floats a long dis-
tance, but cultivation makes its seeds too large
and heavy to travel far. Cocoanuts, seeds of the
mahogany tree, etc., are carried long distances by
ocean currents. Grass seeds, etc., are familiar
examples of seeds that are carried in the soil
washed by rivers and smaller streams.

Third, there are numerous familiar instances
of seeds distributed by animals. Birds are among
the most active agents in seed distribution. Crows,
magpies, etc., in a seeming spirit of mischief,
have been known to carry nuts several miles and
bury them. The seeds of wild grasses cling to

AND AGRICULTURE. 37

the feathers of birds and are carried long dis-
tances, and other birds, especially waders, carry
lumps of earth containing seeds on their feet or
legs to be deposited far away. Rye, oats, wheat,
millet and clover seeds have been carried fre-
<[uently in the crops of birds. Other seeds, pro-
tected against digestion, have been swallowed by
birds for the sweet, fleshy part that surrounds
them. Among these are the raspberry, cherry,
blackberry, strawberry, etc. The hooked seeds,
«uch as burdocks, cockleburs, sand burs and the
like, fasten themselves upon the coats of sheep,
'dogs, cows, horses and the clothing of man and
are so disseminated. An interesting study may
be made of their adaptation for this means of dis-
persion from their color, and mode of growth as
well as from their being prepared with hooks,
barbs, etc.

Studies In Physics. — Study the forms of water,
<;alling attention first to that of water drop. Show
that a frozen drop of water is a hail stone. The for-
ces, gravitation, cohesion and adhesion may be illus-
trated with the drop of water, but the extent to
which these are developed must depend upon the
advancement of the class or their ability to un-
derstand. The shape of the water drop may be
commented upon and explained according to the
understanding of the pupils.

The formation of vapor may be shown by the
use of the ordinary teakettle. Call attention to
the similarity of the steam, formed when the vapor
comes in contact with cold air, to clouds, and ex-
plain that clouds are formed in a similar way.

38 NATURE-SCIENCE

show that heat, as from an alcohol lamp, will
cause the cloud of steam to disappear. Explain
that clouds sometimes are dispelled by heat.

Illustrate evaporation by wetting some object
as a cloth, piece of paper or a sponge, and place it
in the sunlight or near the fire. Explain where
the water has gone and why, and show how it may
become condensed and visible. The formation of
water drops on the outside of a vessel of cold water
will illustrate the formation of dew.

Call attention to the uses of steam, as in
heating dwellings, in the cooking, in furnishing
power engines, etc. Show that frost is only frozen
dew, that snowflakes are formed by the freezing
of water vapor before it is under the influence of
cohesion. Study the varied delicate crystal*
formed in snowflakes.

Study and discuss ice, showing the beauty and
symmetry in crystallization, the uses of ice after it
has been stored at the time of ice harvest, the
manner of harvesting and storing, agency of ice
in erosion, etc.

Meteorology. — Keep a weather record as sug-
gested in first paper. Kemember to determine the
average temperature at the end of each month.

Geological Studies. — Study gravel beds, their
origin, etc. Pebbles, their nature, origin, rela-
tion to life on the earth. Clay beds, and how
they, are built.

Clay consists of hydrous silicate or alumini.
(Aluminium is the metallic base of alumina, a
white metal with a bluish tinge, and is remark-
able for its resistance to oxidation, and for ita

AND AGRICULTURE. 3S>

lightness.) All clays seem to owe their origin to*
the decomposition of rarious rocks. While their
chief constituent is aluminic silicate, they con-
tain other ingredients varying with the nature of
the rock to which they owe their origin. Com-
mon clay is a mixture of kaolin, or China clay,
and the fine powder of some felapathic mineral
which is not decomposed.

The most common varieties of clay are:
China clay, or kaolin ; pipe clay, containing it
larger percentage of silica than kaolin ; potter'a
clay, less pure than pipe clay; sculptor's clay, or
modeling clay, a fine potter's clay sometimes
mixed with fine sand; brick clay, a mixture of
clay and sand with some ferruginous matter ; fire-
clay, containing little if any lime, alkaline earth
or iron. Shale is a laminated clay-rock ; clay-
slate is an indurated cleaved clay-rock.

The relation of nutrition to the health of
plants as treated by Albert F. Woods, Pathologist
and Physiologist, Bureau of Plant Industry, in
the year book of the Department of Agriculture
for 1901, is so essential and so clearly in line with*
what should be taught in this connection that w&
have taken the liberty to draw freely from thia
paper on this subject, as embracing the results of
the most recent investigations.

Plant Nutrition is one of the most important
problems in agriculture. The most careful tech-
nical research is required in its study and every
truth learned or process explained is of great prac-
tical value. Only a general outline, as based up-
on reports from experiment stations and the

40 NATURE-SCIENCE

Bureau of Plant Industry, can be attempted in a
work of this kind. The discussion, however, will
include the most important problem of nutrition
and is intended to stimulate thoughtful investiga-
tion and experiment.

The simple elements we have named are ob-
tained and organized into living tissue by the pro-
cess called nutrition. It will be seen that while
all plants may be resolved into the same primary
elements, these elements have various combina-
tions and relations to each other in the processes
of organization, making the variety of organic
materials and tissues.

We have different species or varieties of
plants as a result of the fact that each living cell
has a tendency to organize its simple elements
after the manner of its own organization, thus
giving a peculiarity of organization which is ac-
cepted as a natural course in the reproduction of
all individuals.

However, variations in condition of environ-
ment and food will produce variation in the plant.
This is evident from the comparison of a plant
grown on poor soil with one of the same species
grown on very rich soil. The difference is so
great that they are scarcely recognized as the
same.

The elements necessary to plant life and
growth must be in combination available to the
plant. As a whole, plants vary in their ability to
obtain their food elements from different sub-
stances, but with the ordinary agricultural plants
there is not so much difference. All absorb the

AND AGRIOULTURE. 41

free oxygen of the air through the roots, stems,
and leaves, and obtain nitrogen, ammonia, etc., in
the soils mostly by absorption through the roots,
but none of the agricultural plants are able to ab-
sorb nitrogen directly from the air. Though about
75 per cent of the volume of the air is nitrogen,
it is available to crops only through the agency of
micro-organisms, as before stated, which convert
it into nitrates, etc., and thus furnish it through
decaying vegetation or from living roots or cells.

Water and the various salts, of calcium,
magnesium, potassium, sulphur, phosphorus, etc.,
in solution are absorbed mainly through the roots
from the soil. From 70 to 90 per cent of the
weight of living plants is water.

The analyses of prominent investigators show
that the quantitative composition of the ash of
the same kind of plants varies according to the
soil in which they are grown. Every plant re-
quires a certain minimum of each mineral
nutrient. Silicon and sodium are perhaps the
only exceptions. An excessive amount may be
fully as injurious, as in alkali soils, etc.

All practical farmers recognize the effect of
soil conditions upon plant life and development.
The greatest per cent of the substance of plants
comes to them through the soil by way of the
roots, and the texture and structure of the soil
has a decided effect upon the availability to the
plant of the soil foods with the air and water.

Much study has been devoted to the adapta-
tion of plants to soils of certain texture, for an
attempt to grow a crop on a soil not well adapted

42 NATURE-SCIENCE

to it, will result at least in partial failure unless
skill is able to modify the conditions of growth.

It has been found more difficult to maintain
available food, not in too strong a solution in the
soil water with the soil not so wet as to exclude
the air, in light, sandy soils than in clayey soils.
Perhaps the most favorable for management is a
light clay soil with humus and fiber derived from
decaying roots and plant tissues or manure. Such
a soil can be most easily adapted, with proper
drainage, to the absorption of soluble food with-
out danger to roots or plants. It will not readily
become too wet or too dry and air is easily admitted
to the roots.

Importance of Oxygen. — Poor drainage and
consequent excess of water and lack of air to
supply oxygen brings on asphyxiation, weakening,
and even death to the roots of plants growing in
soils subject to such unsuitable mechanical con-
ditions. Frequent illustrations of this are seen in
crops growing in heavy clay soils, especially where
there is impervious subsoil or hardpan, where the
feeding roots are killed by suffocation during ex-
tended wet periods. Roots forming in a moist or
dryish soil are often killed in two or three days if
the soil becomes saturated with water as in the
time of floods on low flat lands. In addition to
the weakening of plants by the loss of feeding
roots, there is development also of injurious pro-
ducts, as alcohol, etc., in the cells of the roots
that are not killed.

If the surface of the soil becomes packed or
hardened most plants will suffer for want of oxy-

AND AGRICULTURE. 45

gen for the roots. This is one reason the farmer
plows his growing corn or his orchard. The
stunted condition or the death of shade trees along:
paved streets is due mostly to the fact that the
open space left around the trunk of the tree is
packed as hard as the pavement or that this space
is entirely too small.

Chemical Condition of the Soil. — It has already
been stated that plants will suffer starvation if
there is not a sufficient quantity of any or all of the
essential elements. The roots w^ill also be injured if
the soluble salts are too greatly in excess. The
iron compounds, for example, cannot be dissolved
and absorbed by the roots if an excess of lime is
present. The absorption of iron and other diffi-
cultly soluble materials is also prevented by a lack
of oxygen or by the presence of parasites which
kill the root hairs and feeding roots. The addi-
tion of iron, sulphate or other soluble iron salt, to-
the soil, will usually correct the trouble due to the
lack of iron.

Recent investigations have shown that magne-
sium is a poison to many plants if unaccompanied
by a readily available calcium compound. Too>
much magnesium and insufficient lime give plants
a stunted growth. The remedy is to apply lime
free from magnesium. Soils poor in magnesium,
however, receive benefit from a magnesium lime
and injury from a lime free from magnesium.

It must be remembered that magnesium is-
necessary to plant growth. It is especially
important in the formation of seeds, and while a.
comparatively small amount is generally sufficient

44 NATURE-SCIENCE

for plant growth up to the time of flowering or fruit-
ing, a sufficient amount must be available then or
the flower buds will not form or will wither before
maturing. This, and other symptoms caused by
lack of this important element, may also be pro-
cured by other causes which must also be taken
into consideration.

Magnesium occurs in the soil in a natural
way from disintregating rocks, chiefly as magne-
sium carbonate and sulphate.

If there is not sufficient lime or calcium it is
first indicated in plant development by stunted
growth and small, yellowish leaves. Chlorophyll
or leaf green bodies do not normally develop, and
the starch they make does not readily change into
sugar. It is thought that this latter difliculty is
•due to the failure of the nucleus of the cells to
manufacture diastase, the ferment necessary for
transforming starch to sugar in plant nutrition.

Calcium owes its chief importance to the fact
that it is a necessary constituent of the compounds
■entering directly into the composition of the nuc-
leus and of the chlorophyll bodies, while it serves
:also the purpose to a large extent of neutralizing
free acids developing in the nutrition of the cell.

Calcium is also important in serving to com-
bine acids produced in the soil in various ways, i.
•e., by decomposition brought about through the
action of roots, etc., upon soil particles, and also
by strictly chemical decompositions. The roots of
plants would be injured if these free acids were
not neutralized. The presence of lime also favors
nitrification in the soils.

AND AGRICULTURE. 45

Potassium. — All agricultural plants require
large quantities of potassium. It is estimated
that a wheat field requires about thirty pounds per
acre annually ; clover field, about eighty-three
pounds; potato field, about one hundred pounds.

One of the first indications of a lack of potash
is a cessation in growth without any apparent dis-
turbance, the plants having their normal green
color but making very little starch or sugar, and
little, if any, protein or nitrogenous matter.

Potash is apparently indispensible in connec-
tion with protein formation and it is an important
factor in the formation of starches and sugars.
Proteins, or the related nitrogenous compounds,
are the main source of food in the growing cells,
hence the importance of potassium is easily recog-
nized.

One of the most important physical require-
ments of plant growth is turgescence, or water
pressure, in the cells. Potassium is necessary to
this condition, while it also increases the water-
absorbing power of the plant as a whole and the
water holding power of the soil. Plants are more
readily matured and perfected by a ready supply
of potassium.

It has been estimated that clay soils, especi-
ally clay loams, contain from 5 to 8 per cent of
potash, lighter loams, about 3 per cent and deeper
sandy soils about 1 per cent. Even this smaller
amount is equivalent to 3,500 pounds per acre,
assuming that one acre of land one foot deep
weighs 3,500,000 pounds.

Function of Phosphoric Acid. — Phosphorus

46 NATURE-SOIENOE

enters largely into the nutrition of the nucleus of
'Cells. The nucleus is not only the controlling
•center of every living cell, but its most highly
specialized portion. It is evident, then, that
without phosphoric acid the nucleus can neither
grow nor divide for the production of new cells,
hence plant growth ceases. Phosphoric acid is
also an important constituent of chlorophyll and of
•chlorophyll bodies. Without these, the formation
of sugar and starch from water and carbon dioxide
cannot be accomplished. The lack of phosphoric
acid, as well as of iron, lime or magnesium, is in-
dicated by a yellowing of the chlorophyll.

Chemical investigation has shown that as a
plant nears its flowering or fruiting period, phos-
phoric acid, magnesium, proteins and carbohy-
drates pass rapidly into the younger parts of the
plant, preparatory to being stored in the seeds of
fruits to meet the requirements of rapid growth
at these periods. In case of scarcity, these ma-
terials are even forcibly withdrawn from the lower
leaves and the roots when the reserves are used
up. The living substance of the cells in the lower
leaves is dissolved and absorbed after the carbo-
hydrates, the fats and other reserve foods are gone.
The chlorophyll disappears, then the chlorophyll
bodies (chloroplasts), the nucleus, and the rest of
the valuable constituents of the cells are absorbed
by the younger parts. The elements thus obtained
serve to feed the tuft of young leaves for a con-
siderable time.

It is noted that a similar transfer of valuable
food constituents takes place before the fall of

AND AGRICULTURE. 47

leaves in autumn in practically all deciduous
trees.

Nitrogen is necessary to the formation of al-
bumen and of various constituents of the proto-
plasm. As has been stated, it is absorbed from
the soil by the plant largely as nitrates or
ammonia.

The lack of nitrogen is usually manifested by
reduced leaf and stem growth and the tendency
to the production of flowers and fruit at a very
early period, though the amount of fruit produced
is correspondingly small. Again, an excess of
nitrogen, like an excess of water, stimulates the
production of a vegetative growth at the expense
of flowers and fruit.

Wheat and other cereals have not only soft
leaves and weak stems under such conditions, but
the plants are more subject to rust and mildew,
and other parasitic diseases. This is true, practi-
cally, of all ordinary plants. Common salt is of
great value when applied to light soils too rich in
nitrogen. It reduces the excessive vegatative
growth, thus permitting the formation of more
grain in proportion to the straw and preventing
the lodging due to rank growth. English farmers
use it on very light lands at the rate of two to
three hundredweight per acre, applied usually be-
fore the land is plowed.

Nitrogen assimilation also appears to be in-
volved in some obscure diseases, such as the
mosaic disease of tobacco, winter blight of toma
toes, peach yellows, etc.

The dilute solutions of nitrates are absorbed

48 NATURE-SCIENCE

by the roots of the plants and pass up through the
stems to the leaves, where, through the aid of the
chlorophyll, the nitric acid unites with the sugars
to form the more highly organized compounds,
amides and proteids, which serve as food for the,
growing cells. If anything interferes with the
process of proteid organization nitrogen starvation
will result, even in the presence of large quanti-
ties of nitrates, for the young cells cannot use the
original soil nitrates.

Sugars are required for the organization of
proteids, and sugar cannot be produced unless the
chloroplasts are in good working order and exposed
to light and heat of the proper intensity. There
is no proteid formation in albino leaves or those
devoid of chlorophyll, neither is there any where
there is not sufficient light or heat. In such
cases, therefore, nitrates accumulate in the plant.
When the activity of the chloroplasts is renewed
this accumulation of nitrates is gradually worked
up into proteids, except in albino leaves, where
the chloroplasts have lost their functional activity.

Experimental investigation has shown that a
large excess in nitrates may in themselves cause a
yellowing in the chloroplasts and so prevent nitrate
assimilation. At first, plants overfed with nitrate
of soda or other strong nitrogenous fertilizers, be-
come brighter green and grow rapidly, but as
their nitrates accumulate in the cell faster than
it is used, the leaves begin to turn yellow on the
edges and along the vascular bundles, and growth
is checked and the plant dies back. This is
especially likely to happen in plants that are not

AND AGRICULTURE. 4^

gross feeders. Yellowing and death of the edges
of the leaves is caused by an over application of
almost quickly soluble salt (potash, sodium, chlo-
ride, etc.

Organic manures are likely to stimulate vege-
tative growth at the expense of fruit, the fruit
produced with organic nitrogen being coarser^
thicker skinned and of poorer quality than when
mineral fertilizers are used. Muck acts in this
respect like organic manures, and it often contains
iron pyrite, which, when exposed to the air, oxi-
dizes to iron sulphate or copperas. Free sulphuric
acid often forms in such cases, especially in the
presence of decaying organic matters. The inju-
rious action of muck on plants is often due tO'
these causes rather than to any peculiarity of their
nitrogen. Thorough compositing with lime is a
remedy for these conditions.

In the use of organic nitrogen, especially fresh
organic manures, there is a possible danger of the
production of nitrites during decay and fermenta-
tion in the absence of a ready supply of oxygen.
The acid juice of the roots of plants would con-
vert nitrites into nitrous acids, which would, of
course, quickly kill the feeding roots. This may
be one reason why fresh manures often act injuri-
ously on crops, especially in soils not well aerated.

If the solid matter in a solution in a soil ex-
ceed one part to five hundred of water, it is near-
ing a limit beyond which many plants are likely
to suffer ; the leaves turn yellow on the edges, be-
come spotted and drop off, or growth is checked^
shortened and compacted ; the leaves often become

50 NATURE-SCIENCE

puckered and twisted, owing to the weak devel-
opment of the vascular tissue ("veins") as com-
pared with the soft cells of the leaf. The roots
and root hairs are also shortened, thickened and
deformed. This refers, of course, to conditions
to where concentration is not sufficient to kill the
roots outright. It is understood that the strength
of solution varies for different species of plants,
some requiring a weak solution of nutritive mat-
ter while for others a highly concentrated solution
is best. As a general rule plants with leathery
leaves, with hard and narrow leaves, and with
hard wood, require more dilute solutions than
those with large, soft and expanded leaves. It is
well to note that during the period of leaf forma-
tion plants can do with the greatest amount of
nutritive matter.

Water. — An insufficient supply of water causes
a hard, stunted growth, while an excess of water
causes a soft, watery growth, subject to the
attacks of various plant and animal parasites
and easily injured consequently by drought.
As has been previously stated, an excess
of water in the soil excludes the air and
produces asphyxiation of the roots. Most
annual plants require the greatest amount of wa-
ter during the rapid development of new shoots
and leaves, and again at the period of flowering
and fruiting. During to dormant or resting period
which most plants require at some stage of their
development, very little water is required, as well
as very little food of any kind. Many evergreen
plants, if watered during the resting period, drop

AND AGRICULTURE. 51

their leaves, after which, if the soil is not brought
promptly to the proper degree of dryness, the
feeding roots decay and the plant may die. In
the case of bulbous and tuberous plants the nat-
ural ripening and resting periods of the bulbs and
tubers must be regarded or the bulbs will either
rot or produce plants of very low vitality.

Most plants store up their reserve food imme-
diately following the period of vegetative growth
and fruit production. In perennials it is stored
in the roots and stems and in the bulbous and
tuberous plants in the bulbs and tubers. Here it
undergoes slow changes, varying for different spe-
cies, preparatory to a renewed period of growth.
Many seeds also have to go through a similar rest-
ing period in which these nutritive materials be-
come available for further growth. While plants,
bulbs and seeds may often be forced to grow with-
out this period of rest, it is evident that the re-
serve foods may not be in the right form to prop-
erly nourish the early stages of growth, and a
weak, diseased plant is the result. No amount of
nutritive salts or fertilizers applied to the roots of
such plants can help them out. They will even-
tually starve to death in the presence of an ex-
cess of food. The pathological conditions in the
cells are the same as described under the head of
nitrogen.

Carbon forms about one-half (44 to 60 per cent)
of the dry organic matter of plants. (The same pro-
portion holds true in animal life.) It has been
noted that the absorption of carbon dioxid from
the air is one of the fundamental conditions of

52 NATURE-SCIENCE

nutrition. Though the amount in the air is quite^
small, viz., only .03 per cent, (or 3 volumes in
10,000 volumes of the air) the air is the direct
source of supply.

The transformation of carbon dioxid into car-
bohydrates (starch, sugar, etc.) takes place only in
cells containing chlorophyll, and these are located,
of course, mainly in the leaves. Hence anything
which interferes with the normal development of
the chlorophyll bodies in the leaves or the devel-
opment of chlorophyll will interfere indirectly
with carbon assimilation.

Heat and Light are very important factors,,
and different species of plants vary in regard to-
requirements in these respects. Some plants re-
quire to be shaded. When leaves are even slightly
withered the stomata, or breathing pores, through
which the principal interchange of gases (carbon
dioxide, hydrogen, etc.) between the leaf and the-
air takes place, close in order to prevent the fur-
ther loss of water. In this withered condition car-
bon dioxide enters the leaf with difficulty and the
sugar production is greatly reduced or altogether
prevented.

When leaves are exposed to sunlight, as Prof.
Wood has determined by experiment, their inter-
nal temperature becomes several degrees warmer
than the surrounding air. If the external tem-
perature is very high, tender leaves may get so hot
as to be actually scalded. It is observed that
plants growing in hot deserts and places exposed
to the sun are, as a rule, covered with a dense
coating of hair or scales. This prevents the ex-

AND AGRICULTURE. 53

■cessive heating of the tissues and consequent ex-
cessive evaporation.

Observations of investigators have been con-
firmed by Prof. Wood to the effect that spraying
foliage with Bordeaux mixture or lime reduces
evaporation, since the applications act like a hairy
or scaly covering. Hence, during hot, dry periods
spraying, apart from the fungicidal value, has a
beneficial influence in promoting assimilation by
preventing excessive absorption of heat and light
rays by the leaves, and crops so protected might
be able to withstand a droughty season that would
otherwise greatly injure them. It also suggests
the inadvisability of spraying heat-loving plants
during the cool weather of early spring.

When plants are exposed to too strong a light
the fact can usually be determined by the effort
on the part of the suffering plant to place the sur-
face of its leaves more or less parallel to the light
rays, thus reducing absorption. When there is
too little light the leaves present their upper sur-
face as nearly as possible at right angles to the
light rays, thus increasing light absorption. In
very strong light the chloroplasts move to the side
walls and turn their edges to the light, and the
leaves thus have a lighter green color and less
light and heat are absorbed. When the light is
weaker the chloroplasts present their largest sur-
face and the same leaf becomes a darker green
and more light is absorbed. If the light is too
weak, however, the plant finally becomes yellow-
ish and starved.

Reserved Food of Plants. — A mature seed of

64 NATURE-SCIENCE

any plant contains not only the embryo plant, but
more, less reserve food — starch, sugar, oils and
protein materials. In some cases these materials
are directly available to the germinating seedling,
even before the complete maturity of the seed.
In other cases, after the seed is mature it has to
go through a "resting" period, in which internal
changes take place preparatory to germination.
Ferments are formed ready to cause the solution
of the reserve food during the process of germina-
tion. If germination is forced before these
changes are complete a weak and poorly nourished
growth is the result. Often these preparatory
resting period changes take place only when the
seeds are exposed to certain natural conditions of
environment, such as heat or cold, moisture or
dryness, etc.

During the early stages of growth of herba-
ceous plants, after the reserve food in seeds or
tubers has been used up, the young plant must
manufacture its own supply. For this reason the
first leaves must begin work early in cases where
the reserve food in the cotyledons or other storage
tissues is small, and they should therefore be
carefully protected against injury.

In most plants we have first a root develop-
ment, requiring a warm, moist soil and cool air^
then a development of the stem and leaves. If
during the first stage of development conditions
favor leaf instead of root growth, the young plants
soon suffer for water and soil food, and even if not
killed may never fully recover and produce a nor-
mal growth. The amount and nature of reserve

AND AGRICULTURE. 55

food should always be considered in the various
operations of propagating and pruning, if the
health, vigor and productiveness of the plants op-
erated on are to be kept up to a high standard.

Nalurx^-^rtenr? mh Agrtrultur?.

OUTLINE QUIZZES.
(second paper.)

1. How is the cause of migration of birds ex-
plained ?

2. Which explanation do you think most

plausible? Why?

3. What have you learned of the food of the
grasshopper? Of his means of protection?

4. How or in what are the grasshopper and
the katydid alike? How are they unlike?

5. What are the functions of plant stems?

6. How would you teach these functions to a
class of children considering them for the first

time?

7. How does a corn stalk differ from a maple
in its manner of growth? In venation?

8. What is the function of bark on stems?

9. What is the chief object in the life of a

plant?

10. What animals are the most active agents
in seed distribution?

11. Of what does clay consist? Name com-
mon varieties?

12. What is meant by plant nutrition?

13. What causes different species or varieties?

m NATURE-SCIENCE

14. Discuss the importance of oxygen to plant
life?

15. Why does packing of the soil about roots
of plants cause the plants to suffer?

16. "What chemical conditions injure growing
plants?

17. Of what importance is magnesium to plant
life?

18. In what particular is calcium important?

19. "Which elements are the source of food in
growing cells?

20. How is lack of nitrogen usually manifested
in plants ?

AND AGRICULTURE. 57

[ THIRD PAPER.]

**I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba and say
* 'Tis ail barren*? and so it is; and so is all the world to him w^ho
will not coltivatc the fruit it offers." — Sterne.

THIRD LESSON.
Plant Study.

It will be well to begin this study with a kind
of anatomical study of familiar plants as types of
plant life. Note first the variety in form and size
and make distinctions, as, trees, shrubs and herbs.
Call attention to the almost universal green color-
ing and explain the importance of this color. As
examples of plants which are not so colored, refer
to mushrooms and lichens. The latter may be
found in abundance on the trunks of trees, or on
walls, etc. Interest may be varied and intensified
by exhibiting also a few microscopical specimens
of plants. Taking any familiar tree, studying its
parts, as roots, stem (trunk), branches and leaves.
The principal study of the roots at this time should
be a comparison with the stem, showing their
similarity — sometimes, notably, in the case of the
chestnut tree, etc., when a portion of the root is
uncovered for a considerable time, it appears very
much like the stem, and even sends shoots or
branches bearing buds, into the air. Consider
types of roots, as soil, water, air, clinging and
prop roots. Call attention, also, to different kinds
of stems, as subterranean, procumbent, floating,
climbing, erect, etc. Study the three distinct

58 NATURE-SCIENCE

parts, pith, wood and bark, in a cross section of
the trunk. Notice that the pith does not increase
in area of cross section as the tree grows older.
Notice, too, the difference in color, smoothness
and thickness of the bark, by comparing a young
tree with an old one, and observe that the growth
of new wood is between the old wood and the
bark. Thus it can be seen that the growth is
from the outside. The older wood is the "heart
wood," the newer growth the '*sap wood."

Compare the relations of the branches to the
trunk, in the pine, fir, etc., and apply the terms,
excurrent and deliquescent.

Consider next the leaves in their relation to
the branch, as to whether they are petiolate (hav-
ing a stem) or sessile (without a stem).

Call attention to the importance of the blade
of the leaf and notice the arrangement of the
leaves on the stem, as opposite, alternate, etc.
Other interesting studies will be in comparing
leaves as to their venation, their surfaces, their
classification into simple, compound, etc., their
margins, their outlines, bases, apexes, etc.

Observe that new branches are formed always
in the angle between the leaf and the branch or
stem on which it grows. Some of these branches,
usually shorter than others, end in a flower bud.

Study the parts of a flower; the calyx, with
its separate leaves called sepals, thecorolia, whose
leaves are called petals; the stamens, composed
each of a filament and an anther (the latter pro-
ducing the pollen, or flower dust, whose use should
be explained) ; the pistils, whose stalks are called

AND AGRICULTURE. 59

styles and the ball at the base an ovary which
will grow or develop and form the fruit when the
other parts of the flower have fallen away or have
disappeared. From a variety of specimens it>
should be shown that some are incomplete, that is,
they have not all the parts just named, and that
those are perfect flowers, so far as fructification is
concerned, which have both stamens and pistils.
It should be explained, or discovered, that some
flowering plants do not produce fruit because they
do not bear both these essential organs. Willows,
hemp, chestnuts, hops, etc., may be studied as
examples of this class, and the discovery made
that plants bearing these organs, each on a differ-
ent plant, must grow near each other in order
that there may be fruit. Sometimes, as in the
case of a certain weeping v/illow, new plants must
be produced from slips or cuttings, since only one
kind, that bearing pistils, has been imported to
this country. Distinctions should be made also as
to the length of life of different plants ; as, an-
nuals, biennials and perennials and the pupils
should be led to name examples of each. Note
that some plants are perennial, as to the root, but
annual as to the stem.

Do not clooo this study until there is a clear
idea of the parts of a plant and their functions as
well as ability to give a good defir.itio i of all the
parts and terms discussed. The relation that
flower, fruit, s^ed, root, stem, leaf and bud bear
to each other should be shown, as adapted to the
ability of the learner. Also the different organs
in which plant fcod may be stored should be dis-

60 NATURE-SCIENOE

cussed, together witli the sources of plant food.
There is an abundant opportunity, too, to dis-
tinguish the organic and the inorganic in these
studies and researchep, and the relations of the
•diiferent groups of natural objects to one another
may be discussed. Sketching or drawing should
not be omitted as it serves an important purpose
in bringing out the charact ristic features, as the
pupil sees them, of organs, structure, etc., under
investigation ; but avoid going too much into de-
tail and make no attempt to be "artistic" in this
respect.

ANIMALS.

Frogs, Toads and Salamanders. — Examples of
as many kinds of frogs and toads as possible should
be compared as to size, color and markings,
habits, etc. Their notes, manner of feeding, sea-
son of spawning, etc., should be obs3rved. Ob-
:serve also their eggs and compare them. Note
that frogs have teeth in the lower jaw, while
toads have none. It may also be learned that
none of them are veno.jous aid that nearly all
are valuable insect dastroyers and for that reason
they should be protected, not abused and de-
spised. Distinction should also be made between
salamanders and lizards. The former have a
smooth skin while the latter are always covered
with horny scales. There are no common lizards
in the northern portion of the United States. Ex-
amples of these, as the "horned toad" and the
chameleon are frequently brought from Texas
and other southern states as curiosities. Sala-

AND AGKIOULTURE. 61

manders belong with frogs and toads in the class
known as Batrachia. Mud puppies resemble
salamanders in shape. They live altogether in
water and have external gills. Salamanders have
no external gills when full grown.

Turtles also afford interesting study as to
habits of feeding, etc. Their nests, containing
eggs often in great numbers, may be found hidden
in the sand in the banks of streams or ponds. The
actions of the newly hatched young will be ob-
served also with great interest. It will be ob-
served that most turtles are aquatic or semi-
aquatic.

Studies in Physics. — Compare natural objects
as to their common properties, as, impenetrability,
dvisibility, compressibility and expansibility,
etc. Experiments may be made showing that the
several objects compared possess these properties
although in different degrees.

The Three States of Matter: — Solid, liquid and
gaseous, may be represented easily and definite
ideas concerning them may be shown.

Experiment. — Plunge an inverted tumbler in-
to a vessel of water and note that the surface of
the water in the tumbler is lower than that of the
water in the larger vessel. Burn a small piece of
paper in the tumbler and while it is warm invert
and plunge it quickly again partially into the
vessel. Notice that the surface of the water in
the tumbler is now higher than that in the larger
vessel. What does this prove about the air?
Show the change of a liquid into gaseous form by
the two processess, ebullition (boiling), and by

62 NATURE-SCIENCE

evaporation. The experiments may be carried
further and the process of distillation shown by
simple means.

The expansion and compression of liquids and
solids by the application of heat or cold, or by the
observation of natural phenomena, etc. It may
be shown that solids increase in volume by being
reduced to the liquid form, and that a still greater
increase in volume results from sufficient addi-
tion of heat or reduction of pressure to bring it to
a gaseous condilion. The notable exception to
this general rule should be shown in the case of
freezing water or melting ice. Illustrations or
observations showing the importance, and the
utility of the great force developed in this way
should be insisted upon. The principle of the ex-
pansion of the solids by heat and their contraction
by cold can be understood readily by the ob-
servant minds and its importance, in the utility
of nature and in the mechanical world should be
suggested by proper means ; as, in the bursting of
vessels when water is frozen in them, or the
breaking or splitting of rocks by the same process,
(proving the exception spoken of above) ; in the
space left between the ends of the rails in con-
structing railway tracks ; in the illustration of the
principle in ''setting" wagon tires, etc.

A portion of this study may be spent in dis-
cussing Temperature, what it is ; in learning that
heat and cold are relative terms ; that cooling an
object consists not in adding cold, but in taking
away heat; that we speak of an object as being
very warm when its temperature is higher than

AND AGRICULTURE. 63

that of our body, and cold when its temperature is
lower; but in either case we cannot accurately de-
termine the degree, hence, the body, or rather the
sense of "■ feeling " or touch is not always a relia-
ble guide in determining temperatures of objects
and for this reason instruments called thermome-
ters (from the two Greek words, thermos, heat,
and metron, measure), are used; these instru-
ments should be studied and the fact determined
that they are constructed upon the principle of ex-
pansion and contraction ; discover why liquids are
used for this purpose generally instead of solids.
The graduation of the thermometer will also make
an interesting study if desired at this time.

Studies in Chemistry. — The first effort in this
study should be directed toward an understanding
of the difference between physical and chemical
phenomena. It should be clearly shown and un-
derstood that in any chemical change a complete
change in the nature of the body is made, i. e.,
the object loses itself in giving rise to other
bodies; in a physical change the body does not
lose its nature, although it may appear in another
form, as changed from solid to liquid, or from
liquid to gaseous, or it may be mixed with other
substances.

Simple bodies, or elements, that is, bodies that
cannot be decomposed, of which there are about
seventy, including the metals, should be dis-
tinguished from compound bodies, or those com-
posed of two or more simple bodies. The different
kinds of matter of which a substance is made are
called its constituents. All the natural compounds

64 NATURE-SCIENCE

are made out of the seventy elements or simple
bodies. These rarely occur as pure compounds,
for two or more substances are mingled so com-
pletely that they seem to be but one, although
each posesses all its properties unchanged. For
example, in syrup of sugar the water and sugar
are mixed without change of properties. It is the
same with water and salt as in brine. Such are
called mixtures, purely physical phenomena. Use
other illustrations. All substances are either
simple compounds or mixtures.

The work of chemistry is to decompose com-
pound bodies, called analysis, or to combine sim-
ple elements and thus form compound bodies,
which process is called synthesis.

It will be observed by every chemical action
it is a source of heat or cold ; a change in tempera-
ture accompanies every change in the nature of a
substance.

Experiments. — 1. Place a piece of chalk in a
glass of strong vinegar, or, better in dilute sul-
phuric acid. Note that a quantity of gas will
escape from the chalk and rise to the surface.
Does it not show that the gas was combined with
something else in the chalk?

2. Mix some powdered sulphur, "flowers of
sulphur", with some very fine iron filings. The
mixture can be easily separated, the sulphur from
the filings, since it is lighter, and there is no
combination of the two substances. Now mix
with warm water and soon the mass will grow
larger and hotter and become somewhat blackish
in color. The two substances are now combiiied

AND AGRICULTURE . 65

and have formed a new substance called sulphide
of iron. This is a good opportunity to call atten-
tion to the fact that in its native state sulphur is
found mixed with earthy impurities from which
it must be separated. This is affected by evapor-
ization, as sulpliur vaporizes more readily than
the substances with which it is mixed, and the
vapor on being cooled in sulphur and is practically
pure.

Sulphur is also found combined with metals
in the rocks and soils. These compounds are
called sulphides. Example, sulphide of iron, or
iron pyrites, known also as "fool's gold."

Many experiments could be suggested illus-
trative of mixtures and of combinations to stimu-
late the powers of observation. It should be kept
in mind that love of observation should lead to
that which is of more importance, love of explana-
tion. Enough has been said to suggest that
experiment is the key to a real knowledge of
nature.

Studies in Geology. — Distinguish between Cal-
careous and Silicious rocks. Calcareous is from the
Latin Calx. Lime, chalk, limestone and marble are
examples of calcareous rocks, since by the action
of heat they become lime ; they are also affected
by acids, dissolving and giving off gas by their
action.

Silicious rocks are such as are not affected by
acids, as clay, flint, slate, etc. These resist the
action of heat.

Minerals are frequently seen in crystalline
form. These crystals are either calcareous or sili-

66 NATURE-SCIENCE

cious. The former are comparatively soft and
are of little value. Quartz and precious stones,
such as rubies, sapphires, etc., are much more val-
uable. Diamonds are crystallized carbon, not
stones. Granite is composed of three different
minerals — quartz, mica and feldspar.

Quartz is the mineral composing flint rock,
and is the hardest of all the common minerals.
A bowlder composed entirely of quartz is called a
quartzite. There are many quartzites. One com-
posed of distinct grains, as white and gray, is
called a granular quartzite. One having the grains
almost completely melted together is a vitreous
quartzite. One containing pebbles is a conglom-
erate. One having some of its pebbles red is a
jaspery conglomerate. Quartzites are exceedingly
abundant and grains of quartz are found in many
other rocks than quartzites. In fact, quartz is the
most abundant of all minerals.

Mica is a rock with shining scale-like mineral
fragments. It splits into leaves of indefinite
thinness. The leaves of one species are transpar-
ent; of another black; another varies from dark
brown or smoky to transparent.

Fe'idspar is a mineral not so hard as quartz;
and, also, when compared with quartz, it presents
a more regular surface, which casts a compara-
tively unbroken reflection, and in other ways, by
study and comparison they may be distinguished.
Feldspar is not always white or cream-colored ;
very frequently it is pink-tinted; often almost
red. All these three different minerals are found
in the granite l)owlder. There are several varie-

AND AGRICULTURE. 6T

ties of granite, according to the species of mica ;
according to the colors of the quartz and feldspar ;
according to coarseness of the constituents; ac-
cording to the relative portions of the three in-
gredients. If, however, the minerals are not uni-
formly mixed ; if they are ranged in courses, the
rock is stratified, and it is not a proper granite,
though often called granite. Properly it is a
Sfneiss (nice). If the mica is almost or completely
wanting in a granite-like rock, it is granulite.
When a gneiss-like rock contains very little feld-
spar, it is called Mica schist (shist).

If a bowlder contains quartz and feldspar with
horneblende (a dark mineral, nearly black, or
greenish black, or dark green, not scaly) instead
of mica, it is not granite but Syenite. The
"Quincy granite," near Boston, is a syenite.

Studies in Astronomy. — The following topics
are presented :

1. The Horizon, (a) The visible or sensible
horizon; (b) The real horizon. Show that each
observer has his own horizon, but that the real
horizon is the line in which the plane passing
through the center of the earth parallel with its
visible horizon meets the sky. The distance be-
tween the visible and the real or astronomical hor-
izon is too small to be perceived on a surface so
far away as the apparent surface of the sky.

2. The Sl<:y. — Note that the observer is always
at the center of that which is called the sky.
What does the sky seem to be? What bodies
seem to move on its surface?

3. Learn concretely the meaning of sphere,

68 NATURE-SCIENCE

circle, axis, point. Then try to conceive these in
the abstract.

4. Deduce several facts proving that the
earth is spherical in form.

5. Size and motions of the earth.

Agriculture.

[third paper.]
WHEAT.

The early home of the wheat was in Central
Asia and by the Mediterranean Sea. It has been
claimed that the Chinese cultivated wheat 2700'
B. C. The Egyptians attributed its origin to Isis;
the Greeks to Ceres. The early lake dweller*
cultivated it in Switzerland, the people of Hun-
gary used it in the Stone Age, and a grain of
wheat has been found in an Egyptian pyramid
which dated 3359 B. C.

Wheat belongs to the family of grasses. It is
an annual plant, with hollow, erect, knotted stems,
and produces, in addition to the development
from the seeding plant, secondary roots and sec-
ondary shoots (tillers) from the base.

Varieties of Wheat.

The classification usually adopted is based, in-
the first instance, on the nature of the ear ; wh«a
mature its axis or stem remains unbroken, as in
the true wheats, or it breaks into a number of
joints as in the spelt wheats.

1. True wheats.
1. Soft wheats.

AND AGRICULTURE. 69

The chaff scales are boat-shaped, ovoid, and
more or less of the consistence of parchment.
The seed is opaque, white and easily broken.

2. Turgid wheats.

The glumes have long aures ; the seed is turgid
and floury.

3. Hard wheats.

The outer glumes are keeled, sharply pointed ;
the seed is elongated and of a hard, glassy texture
and difiicult to break, owing to its toughness.
The seeds are richer in nitrogen than those of the
soft wheats.

4. Polish wheats.

Rarely, if ever, cultivated in this country.
Large, lanceolate glumes and elongated glassy
seeds.

Further subdivisions are also made depending
upon the presence or absence of aures, bearded
or beardless wheat, — the color and texture of
the ears, etc.

2. Spelt wheats.

The distinctions of this variety lie in :

1. The presence of aures.

2. The direction of the joints of the glumes.

1. Straight.

2. Bent outwards.

3. Turned inwards.

3. The form of the ear as shown on cross
section.

4. The axis or stem breaks into a number of
joints.

The division into a spring and winter wheat
is an agricultured one solely. Any variety may

70 NATURE-SCIENCE

be a spring or a winter wheat depending on the
time at which it is sown.

GENERAL STRUCTURE OF THE WHEAT PLANT.

1. Stalk.

1. Grows to a height of from three to
four feet.

2. It contains much woody fibre, being,
largely composed of silex, a hard
flint like material.

2. Leaves.

Each have a long sheath encircling
the stem, and at the junction of the
blade or "flag" with the sheath a small
whitish outgrowth of "ligula."

3. The ear.

Sometimes called the inflorescence
consists of a central stalk or zigzag
forming a series of notches, and bearing
a number of flattened spikelets, one of
which grows out of each notch and has
its inner or upper face pressed up
against it.

At the base of each spikelet are two
empty boat shaped glumes or "chaff
scales," and then a series of flowers, two
to eight in number. Each flower consists
of an outer or lower glume, called the
flowering glume, which terminates in a
long or short awn or "beard."

4. The seed.

1. Oblong or ovoid in shape, with a
longitudinal furrow on one side.

AND AGRICULTURE. 71

2. Closely surrounded by chaff or scales,

3. Microscopical examination of a longi-
tudinal section.

1. The outer layer consists of epidermal
cells, of which the uppermost are
prolonged into short hairs to cover
the apex of the grain.

2. Two or three layers of cells inside the
epidermis constitute the tissue of the
ovary, and overlie somewhat similar
layers which form the coats of the
seed.

3. "Within these cells is a layer of square
cells which contain the gluten or

nitrogenous matter upon which the
nutritive value of the seed depends. This
thin layer of gluten cells contain the
albumen or perisperm, composed of
numerous cells containing starch granules.
The season for wheat sowing depends upon
conditions in different parts of the country, and
somewhat upon the kind or variety to be propa-
gated. Varieties of winter wheat are sov/n in the
fall, usually the latterpartof September or during
the month of October, as they require a sufficient
time to become firmly rooted before the soil is.
frozen.

Spring wheat is sown as early as possible after
the frost is out of the ground in the springtime.
For this reason the ground is plowed in the fall,
usually, and then made fine and loose by means
of discs or harrows.

The harvest time for wheat varies from May,

72 NATURE-SCIENCE

in Texas to August in Manitoba andQuebec, Canada.
That of California, Oregon, Alabama, Kansas, and
most other states, is June; of Minnesota and
Nebraska, July : Sweden, Norway and Holland
liarvest their crops in September ; Northern Rus-
sia and Siberia, in October; Peru and Southern
Africa, in November; New Zealand and Chile, in
December ; Australia and Argentine, in January ;
India, in February; Upper Egypt, in March;
Lower Egypt, Mexico, Turkey, Persia and Asia
Minor, in April.

It is generally conceded that the value of
wheat for milling and bread-making purposes,
depends more largely upon its nitrogen contents
than upon any other. While starch is the most
abundant constituent of wheat and offers the
largest amount of nutritive food, the protein,
representing the principal part of the nitrogenous
bodies, is the substance which gives the wheat its
characteristic properties for bread-making, for in
it are found those constituents, together known
as gluten, which give wheat flour its superiority
for bread-making purposes.

The length of the period of growth is one of
the principal influences afi'ecting the composition
of the wheat grain. There seems to be a marked
relation between the content of protein matter
and starch and the length of the growing season.
The shorter the period of the growth and the
cooler the climate the larger the content of protein
and the smaller the content of starch, and vice
versa. For this reason, the spring wheat should
be cultivated in regions where it is possible.

AJSID AGRICULTURE. 73

In southern countries the intense heat, also,
affects the composition of the grain when it oc-
curs, as it is apt to do, about the time of ripening,
and so hastening the ripening process. The result
is a lowering in the production of starch.

The amount of seed wheat that should be
used per acre depends somewhat upon the manner
of sowing as well as the time. This amount is
usually about two bushels per acre for the sowing
made late in September or early in October and
by increasing this quantity at the rate of half a
peck per week until three bushels are reached,
which may be held as the maximum. These are
the quantities to be used in broad-cast sowing;
when drilling is resorted to, two-fifths less seed
will suffice.
Soil Requirements.

In order to yield a crop of thirty bushels of
wheat to the acre, the amount of the demands
made upon the soil may be approximately ex-
pressed as follows :

Nitrogen 134 lbs.

Phosphoric acid 54 lbs.

Lime 36 lbs .

Magnesia 17 lbs.

Potash 170 lbs.

Use of Wheat.

1. Flour.

2. Straw plaiting and braiding — hats, mats
and baskets.

3. Manufacture of paper.

4. Macaroni.

A preparation of wheat, originally peculiar to

74 NATURE-SCIENCE

Italy, in which country it is an article of food of
national importance. The same substance in
different forms known as vermicelli, paste, etc.
These substances are prepared from the hard,
semi-translucent varieties, these wheats being not
only much richer in gluten and other nitrogenous
compounds, but their preparations are more easily
preserved, to which conditions their suitability
for the manufacture of these preparations is due.
Macaroni and other forms are prepared in a uni-
form manner from a granular meal or hard wheat,,
which is thoroughly mixed and made into a stiff
dough with boiling water. While in the hot con-
dition it is placed in a strong metallic cylinder,
the end of which is closed with a thick disk,
pierced with openings which correspond with the
diameter of the article to be made. By means of
an accurately fitting plunger which is introduced
into this cylinder powerful pressure causes the
stiff dough to squeeze out through the openings in
the disk in continuous threads or sticks as required.
Macaroni is dried rapidly by hanging it in
long sticks or tubes over wooden rods in stoves
or lieated apartments through which currents of
air are driven. True macaroni has a soft yellowish
color, is rough in texture, hard and breaks with a
smooth glassy fracture. On boiling it swells up to
double its original size, without becoming pasty
or adhesive, always maintaining its original
tubular form.

Experiments with macaroni wheats in thi&
country have been made recentlj'" by the Depart-
ment of Agriculture and it has been found that

AND AGRICULTURE. 75

they are well adapted to a wide extent of territory
in the West and Northwest. In some instances
they have yielded from one-third to one-half more
per acre than any other wheats grown side by side
with them, and a good yield with grain of excellent
quality, has been produced when other varieties
have failed. They have also been successfully
grown in Kansas and Nebraska.

The demand for carload lots of macaroni
wheat for seed, as well as for milling, is on the
increase, and the factories in this country are
awakening to the importance of their use instead
of the ordinary bread wheats.

The seed-bed for wheat is best when one or
two inches of the surface soil is fine and loose with
the soil immediately below it fine and compact.
This condition is secured by plowing some time
before seeding. Following with the harrows, then
with the roller. After a week or two the soil
should be surface-tilled v/ ith disc or heavy, sharp-
toothed harrow. In this way, the manure, which
should have been spread upon the freshly plowed
soil, will be divided and covered, the soil will be
compacted, and the last cultivation will pulverize
and loosen the surface. This preparation causes
the roots of the young plant to spread horizontally
near the surface so that they may adapt them-
selves to the alternate rising and falling of the soil
as it freezes and thaws so that they are not seri-
ously injured. As the roots grow during the
warm summer months they naturally penetrate to
the firmer, more compact soil for the moisture
they cannot obtain nearer the surface.

76 NATURE-SCIENCE

RYE.

It is claimed that rye is a native of the Island
of Crete in the Mediterranean Sea. It is also said
to be growing wild in the regions near the Caspian
Sea and in certain regions of Crimea.

1. Stem. Tall, slender, smooth and some-
what branched at the bottom. When fully
matured the stem is very rich in silica.

2. Leaves. Narrow, ribbon-like and bluish
green in color.

3. Spikes. Erect, terminal and solitary,
three to four inches in length.

4. Kernel. When ripe the grain is of an
elongated oval form, with a few hairs at the sum-
mit. It is smaller and less nutritious than that
•of wheat.

BARLEY.

The early home of barley was in Western
Asia. It was cultivated in Syria over three
thousand years ago.

1. The Stalk. Varies in length in different
localities. When fully matured the stem becomes
yellow in color and the head droops.

2. Seed. Is not quite as large as that of
wheat. Has a fine brush which is rough. The
aures are long.

Barley is the most hardy of all cereal grains,
its limits of cultivation extending further north
than any other; at the same time it can be culti-
vated in subtropical countries.

The following is the composition of barley
meal :

AND AGRICULTURE. 7T

Water 15 per cent

Nitrogenous compounds 12.98 per cent

Quia 6.74 per cent

Sugar 3.2 per cent

Starch 59.95 per cent

Fat -■ 2.17 per cent

OATS.

1. Stem. From two to three feet in height.
It turns yellow when the seed is ripe.

2. Flowers. Are arranged in loose panicles,
and are thus unlike the spikes of barley, wheat
and rye.

3. Seeds. Smooth, with single bent aures.
The calyx is two-seeded. The branches of the
panicle are erect when green, but droop when the
seeds ripen.

Smut in Oats. — The presence of smut in the
oat crop can easily be detected by observing the
blackened, imperfect heads where perfect heads
of oats should be found. Two distinct smuts have
been described :

1. Loose smut.

2. Closed or covered smut.

In the loose variety the smutted head is of a
dusky olive brown color and is easily blown off
the stalk by the wind, leaving the stalk bare.
The closed variety is of a blackish brown color, is-
covered by the hull of the original oat kernel, and
consequently in many cases the heads of smut are
not noticed.

These two varieties of smutted heads are made
up of spores or seeds of a fungus plant which grow

78 NATURE-SCIENCE

inside the oat plant. The growth of this fungous
plant, which consists of a colorless thread-like
structure, is as rapid as the growth of the oat
plant. As the oat plant develops and heads out,
branches of this invisible smut are sent out into
the kernels of oats. Tliese branches develop
seeds of the smut plant where the kernels of the
oats should be produced.

This fungous disease may be transmitted from
crop to crop through the seed oats, but it has been
found by experiment that heating the seed oats
to about 140 degrees F. the life of the smut seed
in the oat kernel will be destroyed while the vital-
ity of the oat kernel will not be affected. This
heating and the consequent destruction of the
smut seed is done practically by dipping the seed
oats in hot water just before sowing.

LEQUniNOUS FORAGE PLANTS.

1. Cow Pea. — The cow pea is a plant of warm
weather and long season, so that with some excep-
tions the varieties do not produce seed, or at least
cannot be depended upon to produce seed north of
the Ohio river. The crop is grown and seed pro-
duced in almost every Southern state and upon
most every farm.

Cowpeas are allowed to become well ripened
before harvesting, which is usually done with a
mower. The vines are piled in small piles and
frequently turned until dry. Thrashing is best
done with a bean thrasher, though in some places
the flail is resorted to or the peas are tramped out
by horses on the barn floor.

AND AGRICULTURE. 79

2. Soy Bean. — The soy bean has a more north-
ern and western range than the cow pea. The
pods grow close to the ground and the ordinary
harvesting machine cannot be successfully used.
For small areas a "knife cutter" is used ; for large
areas special harvesting machines are recommend-
ed. Care is needed in keeping the seed ; it should
be stored in loose woven bags, which are only par-
tially filled and kept dry. If put in close bags or
in deep bins in large quantities the seed may heat
enough to injure its vitality.

Canada Field Pea. — The Canada field pea is
grown in the Northern states and in Canada. This
is a genuine pea, while the cow pea is not.

There are many varieties of beans and peas,
and notwithstanding the fact that they differ to
some extent, yet they are very similar in their
nature and growth. The most prominent charac-
teristic of the order to which the pea and bean
belong is the seed pod. In reality the iDod is a
transformed leaf; in other words, when a pod is
broken open, laid out flat, and the seeds removed,
its resemblance to a leaf is especially noticeable.
The long, tough liber situated along the back of
the pod corresponds to the central vein of a leaf ;
the line along the front of a pod is the union of
the two edges. The fibers of the pod are called
"strings."

Beans and peas may be considered good ex-
amples of the two cotyledonous plants, i. e., the
seeds are in two parts, and in the process of germ-
ination these tvv'o halves rise above the ground to
aid in the capacity of both leaf and store house of

80 NATURE-SCIENCE

supply, till the plants have enough roots and
leaves to make a living for themselves. Observa-
tion will show that as soon as the two halves of
the seed reach the light and air they turn green,
which means that they are endowed with chloro-
phyll and can manufacture protoplasm as well as
supply it ready-made. As soon as the true leaves
are developed the cotyledons are absolved.

Beans and peas require but from six to ten
weeks for growth and maturity, consequently they
are planted from early spring till the middle of
summer. Root and stalks die as soon as the seeds
are developed.

The seeds of both peas and beans need but a
thin covering of soil for germination, springing up*
in a day or two when planted in moist, warm soil.
Decay results when covered too deeply.

Clover, cow peas, soy beans, etc., are grown,
not only for forage, but principally as leguminous,
crops to restore nitrogen to the soil.

HEMP.

The original home of the hemp plant was
doubtless in some part of Asia. The hemp plant
is dioecious, that is the male and female, flowers
are borne on separate plants. The male plant is
smaller than the female, and ripens and dies
earlier in the summer. In addition to these dis-
tinguishing features the foliage of the female
plant is darker and more luxuriant than that of
the male.

The leaves of the hemp plant consist of from,
five to seven leaflets, the form of which is lanceo-

AND AGRICULTURE. 8B

late-acuminate. The margins are sharply serrated.
The height of the plant varies according to the
season, soil, etc., the average being from eight ta
ten feet.

Hemp is grown for three products.

1. The fiber of its stem.

2. The resinous secretion developed upon it»
leaves and flowering heads, especially in hot
countries.

3. Its oily seeds.

Hemp fiber is long, soft and very strong, being
especially adapted for use where strength is re-
quired. It is used in the manufacture of fine
twines, carpet thread, sail cloth and different
grades of woolen goods. The tow is used for
thread and for yarns to be woven into carpets,
linen goods, etc., and the refuse fiber combined
from the two is used as oakum for calking ships.

The ripe seeds contain about 34 per cent of
oil and 16 per cent of albuminoids. The seeds are
about one-eighth of an inch in length and of a
dark gray color.

They are much used as a food for singing

birds.

Hemp as a drug or intoxicant for smoking and
chewing occurs in the forms of bhang, ganjah and

charas.

An ideal hemp soil must be rich in fertilizing
elements, especially nitrogen and potassium; it
must be deep and sufficiently loose in texture to
permit the development of the root system and
also to allow good drainage. But few farm crops
require so much water about its roots. The time

82 NATURE-SCIENCE

of harvesting varies from eighty to one hundred
and forty days from the date of seeding, the rate
of growth depending upon the variety, moisture,
condition of the soil and temperature. If cut too
early the fiber will be fine, but lacking in strength ;
if allowed to become too mature the fiber will be
«oarse, harsh and brittle.

After the hemp is cut it is allowed to lie on
the ground from four to eight days to dry. When
dry the hemp is usually bound in small bundles
und set up in shocks. In stacks, properly
built, the hemp will remain uninjured foraperiod
■of from two to three years, in fact it is claimed
rthat the quality of the fiber is improved.

"Eatting" is the process in which the vege-
table gums surrounding the fiber are dissolved
:and the fiber is at the same time freed somewhat
from the woody interior portion of the stalk and
also from the thin outer cuticle. These gums are
not soluble in water, but they are dissolved by a
kind of putrefaction which takes place when the
stalks are immersed for some time in soft water or
are exposed to the weather.

Breaking is the process by which the fiber is
-separated from the stalks and roughly cleaned. It
prepares the fiber for market as rough hemp. The
name has also been extended to various fibers re-
sembling the true hemp, as, the Sisal Hemp of
Mexico and Yucatan, whose product is well known
in this country, especially in the form of twine
for harvesting machines, as is also that of Manila
Hemp.

AND AGRICULTURE. 83

OUTLINE QUIZZES.

(third paper.)

1. What is the difference between a tree
iand a shrub?

2. What is the importance of the green col-
oring in the foliage of plants?

3. What three distinct parts of the stem are
shown in a cross section?

4. What difference in the relation of the
branches to the trunk, comparing a pine tree with
an oak?

5. What is the stem of a leaf called? That
of a flower bud?

6. Where are new branches of a tree formed?

7. When is a flower complete? Perfect?

8. What is the distinguishing feature be-
(tween the eggs of a frog and those of a toad?

9. What do frogs eat? Toads? Salamanders?

10. What are the "three states of matter?"
Do you know any substance that cannot exist in
all three states?

11. What is the difference between a phy-
sical and chemical change?

12. Of what is granite composed? Lime-
stone?

13. Where did wheat originate?

14. Why is wheat classed with the grasses?

15. Upon what does the value of wheat for
milling purposes depend?

16. What are the soil requirements for
wheat?

17. Where is the native home of rye? Of
barley?

18. What is smut in oats?

19. In what way are leguminous crops of
j)rimary importance?

20. What are the products of the hemp plant?

84 NATURE-SCIENCE

[fourth paper.]

*'It is only through the morning gate of the beautiful that you
can penetrate into the realms of knowledge; that which w^e feel here
as beauty, we shall one day know as truth/'— Schiller.

FOURTH LESSON.

Plant Studies. — Topic for special study.

Evergreens. — Notice the peculiar structure of
the wood, without ducts, with aromatic, resinous
juice ; the awl-shaped or needle-shaped leaves ;
the flowers destitute of floral envelopes; the cat-
kin-like spikes of the staminate flowers and the
ovule-bearing scales of the pistillate ones, ar-
ranged in spikes, which finally ripen into cones.
Different varieties should be studied, including
pines, spruces, firs, larch, cypress, cedar and even
the hemlock, and their characteristics and differ-
ences noted. Study and germinate the seeds.

Air Plants. — These are so called because they
receive their entire sustenance from the air, hav-
ing no connection with the soil.

The most of these are small and not readily
noticed, although they grow in profusion. Exam-
ples of the most familiar ones are the lichens
and mosses growing in great abundance on rocks,
decaying walls, fences and the trunks and branches
of trees. But there are large flowering plants
which live in the same way, growing only where
is abundance of warmth and moisture. Among
these are large handsome flowers belonging to the
Orchis family.

AND AGRICULTURE. 85

Parasitic Plants.— These plants not only grow
upon other plants, the hosts, but they feed upon
their juices by striking their roots, or haustoria
(from Latin, haurire, to drink), into them. Moulds
and blights are only the lowest forms of the plants
that live in this way. Some of the false fox-
gloves, the painted cup and some species of bas-
tard toadflox, are partially parasitic on the roots
of other plants; that is, they absorb the soil-water
from the roots of the host, but they are not wholly
parasitic, since they have chlorophyll in their
leaves, and hence do their own starch-making.
The mistletoe is a half -parasite, whose seed germ-
inates on the boughs of trees. The haustoria be-
come imbedded in the bark and engrafted into
the growing wood until the mistletoe is as firmly
united to the host as a natural branch.

The wholly parasitic plants are absolutely de-
pendent upon other plants, as they are destitute
of the power of assimilation. The cancer-root is
a root parasite of this class, as are also the beech
drops and the pine-sap. The dodder is a common
parasitic herb. One species, the flax-dodder, can
live on only one kind of host.

Wheat rust, so common on wheat and other
grains, and even on grasses, is an excellent and
interesting example of parasitic fungi. There are
three kinds of spores in wheat rust. The first is
the cluster-cup stage, and in this stage the spores
are carried by the wind, usually from some other
plant, as the barberry, and deposited upon the
wheat. They germinate here and soon produce
the red rust. The black spores of the black rust

86 NATURE-SCIENCE

are soon developed upon the stem or the sheath-
These different kind of spores may be examined
with a magnifying glass and their number, posi-
tion, form, size, color, etc., determined.

A lichen is known to be a combination of twa
plants. The green cells belong to a species dis-
tinct in itself, and the remainder, which is the
larger portion of the growth, is a fungus parasitic
upon it. The relation seems to be of mutual ben-
efit, both having a vigorous growth. "Reindeer
moss" and "Iceland moss" are lichens.

Leaves. — Study the many forms under which
leaves exist, namely, as scales, where they are
small and thin, as in quick-grass, or large and
thick, as in all bulbs ; as seed-leaves, or cotyledons;
as in bud-scales. These may be considered as spe-
cial forms of leaves in comparison with what we
call leaves in the foliage of a plant. A careful
examination of these forms should be made in or-
der to determine why they shall be considered
leaves.

Leaves also appear as spines in several plants^
as in the barberry. By careful examination in
summer nearly every gradation between ordinary
leaves with sharp, bristly teeth and leaves which,
are reduced to a branching spine may be seen on
a single shoot.

In some plants, too, as the pea, the upper part
of each leaf becomes a tendril for the climbing
plant.

There are other interesting forms of leaves
which may be discovered by close observation ;
they may also be discovered, in some instances.

AND AGRICULTURE. 87

to serve a double purpose ; that is, they serve as
foliage, to prepare nourishment, and also to per-
form some special office or use, as that of a tendril^
or to store nourishment, etc.

In winter, buds of hickory, buckeye, elm, ca-
talpa, etc., may be studied carefully by dissec-
tions and drawings. These should be contrasted
and interpreted by comparison with development
of leaf buds of early spring.

Weeds.— Make a special study of what are
commonly called weeds— "plants out of place";
plants that persist in growing where they are not
desired; their insistency, their tenacity, their
multiplicity, their great power to effect distribu-
tion in a variety of ways, and their ability to
crowd out more desirable plants.

At the time of ripening there should be a col-
lection of the worst seeds of the neighborhood.
Later these may be planted in flower pots or earth-
en vessels and their vitality tested ; care should
be taken to note differences in amounts of heat
and moisture, etc.

Another interesting experiment may be ar-
ranged by having pupils fill vessels with soil from
different localities or sources, as, from different
levels in fresh excavation ; from some spots known
to have been kept free from weeds for several
years ; from a corner of the cellar under an old
house, etc. Keep these in a warm place, not per-
mitting the soil to dry out, and watch the differ-
ent plants as the seeds germinate and develop.
How did the seeds get into the soil? How long
have they remained there? Why are weeds said

«8 NATURE-SCIENCE

to be the farmer's friends? "Why do state legisla-
tures make weed laws? (In other words, why
may not a farmer or a gardener permit certain
weeds to grow?)

Algae (plural of Alga, from the Latin, sea-
weed). These are mostly aquatic, and are most
familiar as seaweeds and green-pond slimes. The
velvety growths or the incrustations on the glass
of aquaria are also examples. One of the plants,
Spirogyra, commonly known as pond-scum or
**frog-spit," is found in ponds, springs and even
in clear streams.

Algas have been classified according to color :
il) The blue greens, slimy patches on damp wood
or stones, or in shallow fresh water; (2) the green
,algge, found chiefly in fresh water; (3) brown
algge, such as kelps and rockweeds, chiefly marine ;
(4) red algae, the seaweeds or sea-mosses, also
imostly marine. There are altogether nearly 1,500
species.

Float a little spirogyra, pond-scum, in a white
plate, on water just sufficient to cover the bottom
of the vessel. By the aid of the microscope ob-
serve the green color of the threads and their
length compared with their thickness. Notice
whether the filaments are about equal in diame-
■ter. If the power of the microscope is sufficient,
study their structure ; discover the shape of the
vcells ; count the bands of chlorophyll as the num-
ber of bands characterizes the species.

Place some fresh pieces of water weed
XElodae, common in ponds) under a funnel in a
^deep glass jar or other vessel filled with spring

AND AGRICULTURE. 89

water or water from the brook. Invert over the
end of the funnel a test-tube filled with water.

Bubbles of gas will be seen to rise in the
tube. Test for oxygen. (The carbon dioxid used
is in solution in the water.)

As an experiment to illustrate the importance
of oxygen to the roots of a plant, select a thrifty
plant, not aquatic, growing in a flower pot, and
exclude all air from the roots by keeping the soil
saturated with water, or by keeping the bottom of
the plant standing deep in water. Note how the
growth is checked and that the plant finally de-
clines.

Black Mould.— This may be found abundant
in decaying fruits, as apples, peaches, etc., or by
putting portions of damp bread in a warm place
for several days, taking care to keep them moist
and warm until patches of mould make their ap-
pearance. Study them under a good microscope
at different stages of growth, both in fruit and in
the bread. The slender threads which form the
network covering the bread surface are called
hyphae, and the entire network the mycelium.
Note the delicate threads rising at intervals from
the mycelium which terminate in small globules.
These globules are spore-cases. Compare spore
cases in different specimens, as well as in the
same specimen, and note the change of color as
they approach maturity. This study may be con-
tinued by experimenting with the spores to ob-
serve the development of hyphae, etc.

90 NATURE-SOIENOE

ANIHAL STUDIES.

Frogs. — Collect frogs' and toads' eggs and*
keep them in shallow vessels of water. The bot-
tom of the vessel may best be covered with clean
sand and gravel. A stone should also be placed
in the vessel rising to the surface. Spirogyra and
other water plants should be put into the water^
The plants not only keep the water supplied with
oxygen, but they also furnish food for the tad-
poles. Bread and small bits of meat may be add-
ed for food, but the uneaten portions should be
removed before they make the water impure.
"Watch the tadpoles. Note how they breathe.
Compare with fish. Study their development in
every way. Notice that the eggs of toads lie in
single rows, inclosed in transparent jelly. At
first they are about the size of a small pin-head^
black above and light on the lower surface. The
whole mass, after contact with the water, becomes
eight or ten times as large as the body of the
mother toad. The number of eggs at a single lay-
ing, by actual count, has been found to be, in
some instances, more than 10,000.

As the egg is sufficiently large to be observed
without the aid of the microscope, the develop-
ment may be observed readily. The egg becomes
somewhat elongated, then the tadpoles hatch and
begin feeding upon their gelatinous envelope.
When this is gone they eat the slimes in the wa-
ter, on the sides of the vessel, and on everything
in the water. They grow quite rapidly; the hind
legs appear then the fore legs, the tail is absorbed
and the little toads come from the water upon

AND AGRICULTURE. 91

the stone that has been placed for the purpose.
The work the tadpoles do in the water as scaven-
gers should be emphasized. In ponds their feed-
ing habits may also be observed, and it will be-
seen that matter that would otherwise pollute the
water is taken up by them. This will be a reve-
lation to those who have believed water impure
because of the presence of tadpoles. The value
of toads in the extermination of insects, etc.^
should also be observed and emphasized.

Bees. — Study bees as types of a useful and
important class of insects. They should be stud-
ied as individuals and by comparison. Note that
the abdomen is thrown forward upon and inti-
mately united with the thorax ; the large head^
large compound eyes and three ocelli. The
mouth parts are well developed, both for biting
and feeding on the sweets of plants, the ligula
being especially developed for lapping nectar..
Note also that the wings are adapted for powerful
and long-sustained flights. The metamorphosis
of each insect of this division of insects is most
complete. Study the larvae, observing size, shape
and feeding. Compare cocoons of pupae. Notice
the division into three classes, males, females and
workers, and the division of labor among them.
The antennas are short and filiform, the
mandibles large, stout, toothed, and the maxillaa
developed into three subdivisions. (1) the palpi,
usually six-jointed, (2) the labial palpi, generally
four-jointed, and (3) the prolongation of the
ligula, which is highly developed, being furnished
with a secondary pair of palpi, the paraglossae,

^92 NATURE-SCIENCE

while in the pollen-gathering species the ligula is
of great length. If possible observe the manner
in which the bee gathers pollen, first collecting it
with its mandibles, where it is gathered by the
tarsi, from whence it is passed to the intermediate
legs with many peculiar scrapings and twistings
of the limbs, then similarly passed on and depos-
ited, according to the nature of the bee, upon the
posterior tibife and tarsi, or upon the under side
of the abdomen.

The abdomen in the larva state consists of
ten segments, but in the adult bees there are six
complete segments in that of the females and
seven in the males.

Bees secrete wax in thin, transparent, mem-
branous plates on the under side of the abdominal
segments. The honey is elaborated by an un-
known chemical process from the food contained
in what is known as the crop, from which it is re-
gurgitated into the honey cells.

The nests of bees, as well as those of wasps,
>etc., should be collected with the young in various
stages of growth, and in such numbers as to show
their different stages of construction. The cells
of honey bees are hexagonal in shape, except in
the case of the queen cells, which are flask-shaped.
The drone cells are one-fifth larger than the work-
er cells; honey cells are larger than brood cells.

Compare the honey bee with other insects, as
hornet, wasp, bumble bee, house fly, etc., to dis-
cover points of resemblance as well as points of
difference.

Follow a honey bee for a short time and note

AND AGRICULTURE. 9»

what it does, how many flowers it visits, the kinds
of flowers and the flowers they seem to like best-
Study a hive of honey bees to discover if you
can distinguish the three kinds in the hive, the-
workers, the queen and the drones.

Interesting experiments may be made as to
the value of bees in cross-pollination, by covering
a clump of buds of plants, or the branch of a fruit
tree before the buds are open, and comparing the
fruit with that produced by buds of a similar kind
left uncovered. Note the activity of bees as com-
pared with other insects in the matter of cross-
pollination and their relative efiiciency in this
important work.

It will be a matter of interest to collect sta-
tistics of the yield of honey in a neighborhood or
locality, and what influences affect the yield when
there is a material diflTerence in colonies.

Under ordinary condition honey bees collect
all their honey within a radius of two miles, but
they have been known to travel twice as far under
peculiar circumstances to find flowers.

While the bee industry has grown to great
proportions in this country, the honey bee is not
native to America, having been imported from
Europe. There are only a few races of bees that
excel in those points that are desired by bee-
keepers: 1. The black or brown or German bees,
which have been here about 200 years and have
become the common wild bees of the country..
Their defects are principally their bad temper
and their failure to resist attacks of the bee
moth. 2. The Italian bees, whose principal de-

M NATURE-SOIENOE

feet is their failure to winter well in the colder
parts of the country ; otherwise they are deserv-
edly popular. (3). The Oarniolans, whose fault
is excessive swarming. 4. The Cyprians, or Syri-
ans, imported from Cyprus. These bees fill their
cells so full of honey that it gives the honey a
dead or "watery" appearance, which injures its
sale.

It is interesting to know that in addition to
Jioney bees it is estimated that there are some
five thousand different kinds of bees. None of
these have the perfection of organization or the
stability in this respect that the honey bee has.

The Bumble bees are an interesting study,
and are valuable because of their services in the
fertilization of flowers, especially red clover. The
queen having hibernated during the winter, col-
lects honey and pollen in the early spring and,
having selected a home, usually a deserted mouse
Jiest, builds cells and deposits eggs in them, and
feeds the young until the larv^ emerge. The
first bees, which are small workers, then take the
place of the queen in the labor of collecting honey
and pollen and building cells. Broods that follow
are large workers, who continue the work and in-
crease the store of honey. Queens and drones
hatch out usually in August, desert the nest and
scatter over the fields. The workers and drones
die later and the queens alone live through the
winter to begin the same process the following
spring.

There are also many species of wasps and hor-
nets. Most of these burrow in the ground and

AND AGRICULTURE. 95

make their nests there, feeding their young in-
sects, spiders, etc., instead of pollen and honey.
The common mud dauber (mud wasp) is easiest
obtained for study. The most useful to orchard-
ists and gardeners as an insect destroyer is the
white-faced hornet. They are injurious, however,
to grapes, peaches and even to pears, as they
gnaw holes in the fruit which may lead to great
injury to the crop. Like the bumble bee, the
queen alone lives over winter. She begins alone
to build her nest in the spring, making cells in
which she lays eggs, then feeding the larvae on
finely chewed insects. As soon as the first brood
emerge from the cells they begin to assist in the
work of nest building and the bringing of food
for the larvas of the larger workers which follow
them. A last brood of males and females are
brought forth in the early fall, after which the
workers and males die and the queens hibernate
to begin all over the next spring.

Studies in Chemistry. — Prepare and examine
the nature of the following gases : Oxygen, hydro-
gen, carbon dioxid, nitrogen.

Studies in Physics. — The lever classes and ac-
tion of each. Different classes of machines.

Studies in Geology. — Collect specimens of
rocks, clays, sand stones, shales, etc., of locality.
Examine and test for limestone. Study structure,
formation of clay beds, the work of pebbles.

Studies in Astronomy. — Note the changes from
week to week of the time of the rising and the set-
ting of the sun. The sun as the source of all

96 NATURE-SCIENCE

heat on the earth. Phases of moon. Explain
reflected light of moon.

AGRICULTURE.

Corn.

Indian Corn, or Maize, belongs to the family
of grasses. Observation will show that the veins
of the leaves run parallel and that the stalk is
jointed like that of grass. Cross sections of the
stalk will show it to be tubular, its different por-
tions being readily demonstrated.

1. The outer body, or shell, is hard and
tough, giving great strength to the stalk.

2. The inner portion is made up of a soft,
pithy, cellular mass which, upon closer examina-
tion, is found to consist of parallel fibers running
lengthwise from joint to joint.

The corn plant grows from six to fifteen feet
in height, its color varies from a yellowish green
to a dark green during the growing season, de-
pending upon the character of the soil and the
amount of moisture. When the period of the
ripening of the grain begins, the color changes to
yellow and brown, with sometimes a tinge of
orange and red.

Closer inspection and the study of the plant
as a whole will show :

1. One central shaft, there being no branches.

2. The leaves are arranged alternately on
the stem and are attached to it directly, without
any petioles.

The study of the leaf :

1. They are long and ribbon-like.

AND AGRICULTURE. 9T

2. A heavy midrib extends through the cen-
ter from the base to the tip.

3. The veins run parallel.

4. The leaves arch upward in a graceful
curve, the inner part sloping downward to the
shaft and the outer part sloping downward and
away from it.

5. The attachment around the base is such
as to give them a trough.

3. The blossom of the corn is divided into
two parts —

a. The tassel is situated at the very top
of the plant. It is the pollen-bearing or stami-
nate part.

b. The second portion is the pollen receiv-
ing or pistillate part. It is situated lower down
on the stalk. Sometimes there are two or three
of the latter, but usually only one. They are
called the ears.

4. Aerial roots, which appear just before the
plant is full grown. They grow out in circles near
the base of the stalk, and they brace the stalk of
corn materially against the force of the wind.

5. The ripened ear —

1. The kernels of grains are arranged in.
rows.

2. The cob is a long, cylindrical, rough,
woody core.

3. During the early stages of the ear the
cob is green and soft, and connected with it are
long white or green threads, commonly called
silks, but which in reality are the pistils of the
blossom.

"93 NATURE-SCIENCE

4. These pistils receive the fallen pollen
and carry it back to the points of attachment of
the cob, at which place it produces the seeds or
■grain of the corn.

5. After the maturity of the grain the pis-
tils or silks die and turn brown.

6. The whole ear of corn is covered com-
pletely by large, tightly-fitting leaves called the
husk, which must be removed before grains can
he shelled from the cob.

After the seeds or grains of corn have been
placed in suitably prepared soil they germinate
in a few days. But a single blade is sent up as
..all grasses do, the seed consisting of but one coty-
?iedon. As the plant continues to grow it puts out
leaves, first one side, then on the other, so that in
the mature plant there are two rows of leaves up
the stalk on opposite sides; these being arranged
alternately on the stem, as has been said before.
The tassel and the ears appear last of all ; and
as soon as the grains in the ear are fully devel-
oped the whole plant dies.

Cultivation of Corn.

1. Preparation of the soil.

In the central states corn is usually planted
in the months of May and June. The plowing
and harrowing of the soil is usually done just be-
fore the time of planting. In speaking of this
■subject, an authority says: "Experience has
proved that plowing the ground late in the fall
whelps to catch and retain water. The plowing
leaves the ground loose, rough and open, so that

AND AGRIOULTURE. 99

winter snows and rains are caught and retained
in the small cavities due to the plowing. It is
often in a better condition, too, for early spring
working than ground not plowed in the fall, and
an early and successful crop can be started under
more favorable conditions than would otherwise
be possible. When it is dry enough to work, a
good harrowing generally will reduce it to a
smooth, mellow condition, giving it the power to
retain the largest amount of heat and moisture."

2. Planting of the seed.

After suitable preparation of the soil the seed
is planted in rows about four feet apart, the plants
being from two to four feet apart in the row. It
is planted with a hand planter or with corn drills
drawn by horses which plant one or two rows at a
time.

8. Relation and necessity of moisture.

But a small percentage of the weight of the
dry plant is obtained from the soil through the
roots. Immense quantities of water are taken up
through the root system, but it does not enter in-
to the composition of the plant. After passing
through the plant it is given off to the atmosphere
through minute pores or openings in the leaves of
the plants. Just as in the human body the sweat
pores open when a man becomes warm, perspira-
tion collects on the skin, evaporates and cools the
body — so in the case of plants the transpiration of
water cools the plant and prevents it from wilt-
ing on a warm day. If for any reason the root
system cannot supply the moisture for this
transpiration the plant wilts.

100 NATURE-SCIENCE

4. Plowing of the corn.

Incessant cultivation is necessary to destroy
weeds which soon spring up on account of the
plants being so far apart. This cultivation not
only destroys the weeds, but keeps the soil in a
better condition for holding moisture and supplies
necessary aeration to the soil. It may be said
that corn should be plowed four or five times
during a season, best while the plants are small —
after the plants have become large enough to
shade the ground further cultivation is unneces-
sary.

5. Harvesting.

Corn is gathered in the late autumn or at any
time during the winter. By some it is husked in
the field ; others cut and gather i1 , leaving the
husking till the corn is needed. Fodder makes a
good, rough feed for cattle and horses during
autumn and winter — the stalks, being tough and
coarse, are not eaten, usually, unless prepared by
shredding machines, etc.

Results of study and investigation as reported
through the Department of Agriculture from
which we quote, show that there is apparently the
same average amount of ash, oil, and albuminoids
in a corn wherever it grows in this country, with
the exception of the Pacific Slope, where, as with
wheat, there seems to be no facility for obtaining
or assimilating nitrogen. It maintains about the
same percentage of albuminoids under all circum-
stances, and is not affected by its surroundings in
this respect.

Our conclusion must be, then, that corn can

AND AGRICULTURE. 101

supply itself with nitrogen under varied circum-
stances, but that it rarely is able to assimilate
more than a certain amount, nor will it fall far
below this amount. The bushels of corn may
vary, and the size of the grain, but the quantity
of albuminoids is practically unchanged."

We quote also from a report of the University
of Illinois Agricultural Experiment Station :

"Aside from the hull which surrounds the
kernel, there are three principal parts in a grain
of corn :

1. "The darker colored and rather hard and
horny layer lying next to the hull, principally in
the edges and toward the tip end of the kernel,
where it is about one-eighth of an inch in thick-
ness.

2. "The white starchy appearing part occu-
pying the crown end of the kernel and usually al-
so immediately surrounding, or partially sur-
rounding, the germ.

3. "The germ itself which occupies the cen-
tral part of the kernel toward the tip end.

"The horny layer which usually constitutes
about 65 per cent of the corn kernel contains a
large proportion of the total protein in the kernel.

"The white starchy part constitutes about 20
per cent of the whole kernel, and contains a small
proportion of the total protein. The germ con-
stitutes only about 10 per cent of the corn kernel,
but, while it is rich in protein, it also contains
more than 85 per cent of the total oil contents of
the whole kernel, the remainder of the oil being
■distributed in all the other parts."

102 NATURE-SCIENCE

These facts are of value in the selection of
seed corn, as, if one wishes to select those ears
of high protein content he has only to choose those
whose kernels show a relatively small proportion
of the white, starchy part surrounding the germ.
If corn is to be propagated for the oil content, it
is only necessary to select those ears whose kernels
have a larger proportion of germ, etc. It is not
the absolute, but the proportionate, size or quan-
tity of germ or of white starch which serves as a
guide in making these selections.

''The price of corn varies, say, from one-half
to one cent per pound.

"The cost of protein in the principal stock-
feeding states varies from 3 to 5 cents per pounds
In other words, protein is several times more val-
uable than corn itself, consequently stock-feeders
want more protein in corn.

''The price of corn starch varies from 2 or 3
cents to even 10 cents per pound, depending upon
the wholesale or retail nature of the sale. The
manufacturers of starch and glucose sugar, glucose
syrup, and other starch, want more starch in corn."

A bushel of ordinary corn, weighing 56 pounds,
contains about 41 pounds of germ, 36 pounds of
dry starch, 7 pounds of gluten, and 5 pounds of
bran or hull, the balance in weight being made
up of water, soluble matter, etc. The value of
the germ lies in the fact that it contains more
than 40 per cent of corn oil, worth, say, 5 cents
per pound, while the starch is worth 1^ cents, the
gluten 1 cent and the hull i cent per pound.

"It can readily be seen that a variety of corn

AND AGRICULTURE. lOS

containing, say one pound more oil per bushel,,
would be in large demand." These statements
and suggestions appeal to the commercial side of
the question.

It has been estimated that a crop of 50 bush-
els of Indian corn per acre, with the stalks, con-
tains about 64 pounds of nitrogen, 24 pounds of?
phosphoric acid and 36 pounds of potash. Esti-
mating one-half of this plant food returned to the
soil after being fed to animals, this means a loss-
of 32 pounds of nitrogen, 12 pounds of phosphoric-
acid and 18 pounds of potash per acre. The most
of the lost nitrogen may be restored if clover is
in the rotation.

Corn is the most useful, the most productive^
and the most easily raised and harvested of all
plants.

POTATO.

The potato plant belongs to the night shades,
a family of plants which contains poisonous prin-
ciples. The potato is a native of Mexico and Cen-
tral America, but has been introduced into and
cultivated in many countries and climates.

The potato owes its value to the peculiar habit
of developing underground slender leafless-
branches, which differ in character and office from,
the true roots, and which gradually enlarge at the
free end, thus producing the tubers. In its na-
tive state the tuber is no larger than the plum or
cherry, but by cultivation it has increased in size
to its present dimensions.

Scattered over the tuber are a number of

104 NATURE-SCIENCE

buds, commonly called eyes, and from these buds
•new plants grow. Starch and other matters are
^stored up in the tubers, and in due season are ren-
dered available for the nutrition of the young
shoots when they begin to grow. The young
■shoots derive their nourishment from the parent
tuber until development of roots and leaves ena-
bles them to obtain sufficient nutrition and then
take care of themselves. The potato tuber con-
sists for the main part of a mass of cells filled
with starch and encircled by a thin, corky rind.
A few woody fibers traverse the tubers.

2. The following may be given as the aver-
age composition of the potato :

Nitrogen matters 2.1 per cent

-Starch, etc 18.8

Sugar 3.2

Eat 2

Saline matter 7

Water 75.

From the above it will be noticed that the
value of the potato as an article of diet consists
for the most part in the starch it contains. The
quantity of nitrogen it contains is small.

The potato plant grows from two to four feet
in height and has a tendency to vine or run along
the ground. All of the nutritious substances of
the upper portion of the plant are withdrawn and
stored in the tubers as soon as blooming is over.
The vines wither quickly and in the course of a
few weeks scarcely a trace is left.

Potatoes are planted in rows about four feet
apart, so as to readily admit of cultivation ; the

AND AGRICULTURE. 105

hills in each row are from two to three feet apart.
The time of planting varies according to the va-
riety; from the time of the last disappearance of
frost from the ground until July. The early va-
rieties mature about the first of July, the late
varieties in September and October.

The usual manner of keeping potatoes during
the winter is to place them in a cellar or bins, or
to cover them in the field in large heaps. This
later method is best accomplished by first cover-
ing the potatoes with a layer of straw and then
with earth of sufficient depth to keep out frost
and to shed rain.

SWEET POTATO.

The sweet potato is cultivated for the most
part in tropical countries for its tuberous root
which is an article of diet greatly in request.

The leaves are cordate, entire and borne on
slender twining stems. The flowers are borne on
long stalks in loose clusters, they have a white or
rosy funnel shaped corolla.

The edible portion of the plant is the root
which dilates into large club shaped masses filled
with starch.

The plant is not known in a truly wild state.

Natur^-g>rtf nr? aub Agrtrultur?.

OUTLINE QUIZZES.
(fourth paper.)

1. What peculiarity is there in the structure
of the wood of evergreens? The flowers?

2. What is the difference between air plants
and parasitic plants?

106 NATURE-SCIENCE

3. What is wheat rust? What are its stages
of development?

4. What peculiarity is there in the composi-
tion of lichen?

5. What are some of the peculiar forms of
leaves?

6. What are weeds? What are some of their
peculiarities?

7. What are algae? Give examples.

8. What is black mould? Where found?

9. Why are water plants kept in an
aquarium?

10. How does the size of honey cells com-
pare with those of drones and workers in the
hives of a honey bee?

11. Why are spiders often found in the nests
of wasps?

12. Give practical examples of the different
classes of levers.

13. Why is Indian corn classed with the
grasses?

14. Name all the food products of corn.

15. Why is the corn crop cultivated during
growth?

16. What are the three principal parts of a
grain of corn?

17. What portion of a kernel of corn is
starch?

18. What elements are taken from the soil
in the production of a crop of corn?

19. What is the principal food content of the
potato?

20. What gives the sweet potato its value as
a food?

AND AGRICULTURE. 107

[fifth PAPEK.J
"Great Nature spoke; observant man obeyed."

FIFTH LESSON.
PLANT STUDY.

The Propagation of Plants. — The natural methw
od of plant propagation is by two general ways —
by seeds and by buds. If we wish to obtain cor-
rect ideas as to how plants grow, etc., we must
begin at the beginning. Previously, perhaps, we
have observed, in a general way, the plants we
have studied. We have become familiar with
them — with their organs, with their general ap-
pearance, with some of their phenomena, etc. A
few familiar seeds should now be studied as to
structure ; then they should be sprouted and their
growth observed closely.

It is scarcely necessary to say that the seeds
must be good, that is, well matured, in order that
they shall germinate. Their condition in this re-
spect will depend upon their age, for if preserved
too long they may lose their vitality ; upon the
healthful condition of the plant which produced
them, and upon the conditions in which they have
been stored and preserved. Of course, seeds vary
in the length of time they retain their vitality
with the kind of plant and somewhat with the
conditions of both plant and seed developments
Tests with seeds of the same kind but of different
ages, etc., will be interesting experiments in thi»
connection. Do this if possible.

108 NATURE-SCIENCE

It must be taken into consideration that prop-
•er conditions as to air, moisture and temperature
must exist in order that seeds shall germinate.

Experiments : 1. Place soft, wet paper in the
bottom of four or five vessels (glass tumblers will
answer) to the depth of about one inch. Put the
same number of soaked peas in each vessel, cover
the vessels and place them where they will be
subject to different temperatures, say from 35 to
50 degrees. Keep the temperatures as nearly con-
stant as possible, and the moisture in each equal
to that of the others. Note the rate and extent
of germination in each.

2. Arrange the vessels as before, except as
to amount of moisture in each, placing in one dry
seeds on moistened paper; in another place seeds
that have been thoroughly soaked on paper a lit-
tle moistened; in another, place on thoroughly
soaked paper seeds that have been soaked ; in an-
other have sufficient water to nearly cover the
seeds, etc. Place the vessels where they will
have the same temperature and note the times of
germination.

3. Prepare in a similar way vessels contain-
ing seeds with conditions favorable as to moisture
and temperature, but with different provisions as
to the admission of air, and note results.

An interesting experiment, showing effect of
germinating seeds upon the surrounding air, may
be made by removing some of the air in one of the
tightly closed vessels in the last experiment by
means of an "ink-filler" or "medicine-dropper.'*
Force this air through clear, filtered lime water

AND AGRICULTURE^ 10»

and note the result. Is it the same as when the
breath is blown through lime water by means of a,
tube'? (Carbon dioxid renders lime water a milky-
color ) These are familiar experiments which-
will 'suggest others equally familiar and inter-

Considerable technical work might be done m
this connection, but it is thought best to restrict
the experiments somewhat as to amount of work
done, and to limit the extent to which we enter
into detail. Do not try to have children learn
the names of any but essential parts, etc., of each

seed studied. , ., , a -p^^^

Seeds should be studied both dry and after
several hours' soaking. Observe the plumule, or
first bud, in each of several kinds of seeds, as
bean, pea, squash, etc. Split the seed into its
two halves, observing their attachment, the thick-
ness of these halves, each of which is a cotyledon
or seed leaf. Do not fail to have sketches of coty-
ledons, etc. Compare the bean and the pea as to
points of difference. Compare also the peas with
corn at different stages of germination, noting
the formation of roots, development of plumule,
etc Observe that the corn has but one cotyledon
and the fact that it remains nearly altogether in
the buried grain, acting as a digesting and absorb-
ing organ through which the food stored without
the embryo is tranferred to the growing plant
after it is changed to liquid form, as m the case

of most seeds. . , ., , j i.

The plumule, or first bud, with its abundant

supply of plant food stored about it, in all seeds^

110 NATURE-SCIENCE

is more than able to preserve the stock from which
it sprang and to increase the number of plants.
For instance, a farmer may produce the same
stock, and even the same variety, of corn, wheat
or garden vegetables year after year by planting
seed of the previous year's crop, and harvest
much more than the original amount planted.
This is not true of all plants, especially of fruit
tress, vines and shrubs, in respect to variety,
neither can new varieties be secured in this way.

In order to maintain varieties as well as to
produce new ones, such means as layers, cuttings,
grafting and budding are used. Quicker results,
as well as the production of dwarf varieties of
trees, are also obtained in some instances by
grafting.

A layer is formed by bending to the ground a
vigorous young shoot and covering it with three
or four inches of earth. Roots will form at the
covered portion and leaves and branches from the
the tip. Layers are generally allowed to lie one
season before they are severed from the parent
stem. The best results from this means of propa-
gation are obtained from plants which have soft
wood. Fall is the best season for layering,
although good results may be obtained from begin-
ning in the spring.

Cuttings are detached shoots of plants insert-
ed in soil or in water. If the cutting is of soft
wood, there are usually several joints. In hard
wood cuttings there should be two or more buds.
Grapes, currants, and such house plants as gerani-
ums, etc., are propagated by cuttings.

AND AGRICULTURE. Ill

In grafting, a plant, or part of it, is made to
grow upon another plant. The stock is the stem
into which the graft is transplanted. The part
which is transplanted is called the scion (cion).
There are many methods of grafting, but all are
only different ways of matching the line between
the bark and wood of the scion to that of the
stock, then fastening them together until the
cambium layers of the two grow together.

There may be one bud or more in the scion,
and in the most common method of grafting the
scion is inserted in a split in the wood of the
stock, taking care to make close contact between
the living part of both scion and stock (cleft
grafting) ; or the stock may be cut off at the junc-
tion of root and stem with a smooth, slanting cut
about one inch in length, placing this cut in con-
tact with a similar one of a scion of the same size
(whip grafting) ; or by preparing stock and scion
as in the latter method, then splitting both a lit-
tle way near the middle and carefully sliding
them together, the "tongue" of one within the
cleft of the other (whip-tongue grafting). Graft-
ing wax usually prepared from resin, beeswax and
tallow, is used to cover the wound so that parts
may be prevented from dying out. Light ban-
dages are necessary to hold parts in place, and are
put on before the wax is applied.

Budding is only one form of grafting. It is
performed by slipping a bud with a small portion
of its own bark under the bark of the stock. A
*'T" cleft is made in the bark of the stock, the
angles are carefully lifted up and the bud is

112 NATURE-SOIENOE

slipped beneath and tied firmly with a strip of
cloth or a withe of coarse, tough grass. Budding
is usually done in the fall, that the bud may be
ready to begin growth in the spring. As scon as
it begins to shoot the stem of the stock is cut off
a few inches above it.

Buds are always grafted on plants of the same
kind or in some closely related tree, and care
should be taken to select only those buds or scions
whose varieties it is desired to perpetuate.

Common cleft grafting is employed if new va-
rieties are to be added to an old tree. Whip-
grafting in some form is employed in grafting
scions on young stocks, as seedlings used in nurse-
ry stock for apples, pears, etc. Budding is usually
done in propagating peaches, cherries, plums, etc.
Animal Studies.

Fishes. — The following points are suggested,
which may be varied to suit conditions and ad-
vantages for observation : Habitat absolutely
aquatic. Discuss results if a fresh water fish
were transferred to salt water, etc. Call atten-
tion to the fact that certain species, as salmon,
sturgeon, shad and some others, ascend rivers to
spawn, while others, as the eel, pass from the riv-
ers to the sea for the same purpose.

The respiratory organs, gills, are delicate
fringes or laminae, supported on bony arches. In
most species these are covered by a kind of lid
composed of three pieces, the operculum (L. ope-
rire, to cover), the sub-operculum and the inter-
operculum. This three-coated gill-cover plays on
one called the pre-operculum.

AND AGRICULTURE. H^'

The gills are constantly bathed with water
through alternate openings of the mouth and gill
covers, and the necessary oxygen is thus obtained
from the air which is mingled with the water.

The locomotive organs are called fins. Those
corresponding to the anterior locomotive organs
of higher vertebrates are named pectorals, and
those corresponding to the posterior, veiitrals.
The vertical fins on the back are called dorsal,
those beneath the tail anal, and that at the end
of the tail caudal. Which are used in swimmmg?
Which in balancing and directing?

Discuss the swimming bladder and the func-
tions that have been ascribed to it ; also study the
vertebra, their structure and shape, and note the
fact that the spinal column bends freely laterally
but not vertically.

Notice the one large complicated muscle on
each side extending from head to tail, and the
fact that these furnish the principal motive powers.
Observe the smalluess of the brain and de-
termine whether it fills the cavity in which it is
situated.

The eye has no motion (a few exceptions) and
the iris has no power of contraction or dilation
apparently.

Most fishes reproduce by means of eggs, that
is, they are oviparous. The spawning season and
habits of those that are accessible should be
closely observed.

Studies in Pliysics.— Diffusion or transference-
of heat— Illustrated by as simple means as

114 NATURE-SCIENCE

possible the three processes of diffusion of heat, —
conduction, convection and rediation. 1. Con-
duction,— By means of an iron wire or rod show
how heat gradually travels from the end placed
in a flame toward the end held in the hand. Note
also the different degrees of heat between the
two ends after one end is heated. The medium
through which heat passes in this way is called a
conductor. Test the conductivity of several
metals by arranging wires of iron, brass, copper,
etc., so that an end of each is in the same flame
at the same time, and noting how near the fingers
can approach the flame along each wire at the end
of about a minute.

Why does water seem colder than air when
they have both been subject to the same tem-
perature for a considerable length of time and
when the thermometer marks the same degree
of temperature in both? Why does marble seem
colder than wood under the same conditions? Ob-
serve that clothing keeps the body warm because
the fibres of which the cloth is composed are poor
conductors of heat, and because the air which is
between the different parts of the clothing is not
a good conductor and the heat of the body cannot
readily escape. Make a list of materials that are
good conductors of heat.

Show that the diffusion of heat takes place by
convection when the body moves or when there is
relative motion between its parts, as in the heat-
ing of water. Do this by illustration.

The explanation of diffusion of heat by radiation
should be deferred until the subject can be taken

AND AGRICULTURE. 115

up in a special way in connection with other forms
of radiant energy.

Light. — Illustrations should be given showing
that light always moves in a straight line. The
reflection of light should also be illustrated and in
this connection, the refraction of light which has
been previously considered as an interesting phe-
nomenon, should be taken up and explained.
Familiar experiments such as placing a stick or a
straw obliquely in a vessel of clear water and
noting its broken appearances, or by trying to lo-
cate correctly a coin placed in a deep vessel of clean
water, will demonstrate that rays of light are bent
in one direction when entering a rarer medium
and in another when entering a denser substance.

Interesting and instructive experiments may
also be made with simple lenses, as reading glasses,
eye glasses, etc., and explain how microscopes
and telescopes are formed. Consider also in this
connection the seven colors of the solar spectrum
and the fact that bodies are colored only when all
the colors except that by which each is known are
absorbed and this particular color is reflected.

Studies in Chemistry. — In connection with the
germination of seeds to show that carbonic acid
gas (carbon dioxid) is given off, fill a small fruit
jar about half full with beans or peas that have
been soaked twenty-four hours ; add a little luke
warm water and cork the jar. Let it stand for
twenty-four hours and test for carbon dioxid by
inserting a lighted taper. If the taper is extin-
guished it will show that carbon dioxid has taken
the place of oxygen in the jar.

116 NATURE-SCIENCE

Test for starch in a potato tuber, a grain of corn^
etc., by spreading a drop of tincture of iodine oa
the cut or exposed surface. The presence of starch
will be indicated by change to blue or violet
color.

To show that starch is formed only in the green
part of leaves, take a leaf of geranium, or other-
plant, variegated with white, that has been in
sunlight. Place in hot alcohol to disolve out the
chlorophyll, until the green color disappears, and
then stain with iodine. Note that the parts of the-
leaf which were green are now violet-brown indi-
cating starch, while the white parts are not colored
by the iodine.

Geological Studies. — We spoke especially of
quartzites in our last lesson. There are some
rocks that appear to be composed wholly of one
mineral, and yet they are not quartzites. They
are mostly dark-colored, slate-colored or blackish
or greenish in appearance. If these are banded
in difl'erent colors, or are capable of splitting into
sheets, they are argillites. Roofing slates and
most other hard slates are included among them^
If a rock is very fine, blackish and harder than
slate, it may be an aphanite. It is a porphyry if
it consists of a very fine hard, uniform reddish or
greenish base having crystals of feldspar scattered
through it.

Bowlder rocks are all hard, crystalline, and
generally foreign to the region where they lie.
Sometimes fragments of rocks are found that are
not hard and crystalline and far fetched, but
which come from ledges appearing at the surface.

AND AGRICULTURE. 117

not far away. The most familiar uncrystalline
ledges are of sandstone, limestone and shale.
Sandstone is composed chielly of grains of quartz.
They are like those in a granular quartzite but not
60 brilliant or so firmly compacted together.

A grindstone is a fine sandstone.

It should be shown by experiment how sand
grains may be cemented together by lime or iron.
A rusty nail left for some time in damp sand will
cement sand grains.

Studies in Astronomy. — 1. The names of the
planets. 2. The difference between planet and
star. 3. The zodiac, the twelve parts, or signs.
4. Eclipses — their cause, in a general way. 5.
Tides — wliat they are ; their cause ; fiood tide ; ebb
tide; springtide; neap tide.

AGRICULTURE.

(fifth paper.)
Farm Animals.

No study is of more pleasing interest than
that of the domestic animals about us. To know
them, to understand their life, to minister to
their well being, is but to make us closer and bet-
ter observers, and better and more intelligent in
every way. To do this it is not necessary to pet
«r to pamper animals, but to attempt to make
them comfortable and to develop them in every
way that they may be the best types of animals
of their kind.

All farm animals existed at one time in a
wild state. They were tamed by man to serve

118 NATURE-SCIENCE

him in some useful capacity. By commencing
with wolves when young, the American Indians
taught them to assist in the hunt, and in this way
dogs have originated wherever wolves were found:
in those regions inhabited by man. The domestic
turkey came from wild ones captured in the
earlier times and tamed in this, its native home.

It is known, too, that if left to themselves^
all our farm animals will become "wild," as did
the horses and cattle which escaped from the
Spanish settlers in this country in early days,
stocking the western prairies in this way. Such
are called ferae.

We also know that there are many wild ani-
mals very similar to our domestic ones, so similar
in fact, that we are quite sure they are close
relatives and that our own have either come from
them or from others similar to them.

It is interesting to try to learn the origin not
only of the different animals but of the different
kinds or species of the same animal. "We feel
certain that some of them came from more than
one wild species, having originated simultaneous-
ly, or nearly so, in different parts of the earth.
This seems the case, for instance, with dogs. So
many kinds, so much unlike, must have originated
from more than one kind of wolf. The same is
true of cattle, sheep, etc.

Not the least striking feature of the domesti-
cation of farm animals, is the fact that each was
made submissive to man for a definite purpose, —
for hunting, for burden bearing, for clothing, for
food, etc.

AND AGRICULTURE. 119

Only those necessary to man have been domes-
ticated, hence different animals have been do-
mesticated in different countries, for two reasons,
first, because they had different classes of wild
animals, and second, because their requirements
or uses are different. Of course it is to be sup-
posed that only the best types of each kind were
selected, and we know that better food and care
in domesticity has made them improve greatly.

The relation of the number of domestic an-
imals to the human population does not change
rapidly. Quoting from an authority who compiles
the information from the latest census returns,
the average for each family, estimating the num-
ber at sixteen million families consisting of five
persons each, is —

One horse or mule,

One cow,

Two other cattle.

Poultry equal to one cow.

Two and one half hogs,

Two and one half sheep.

Of course it must be evident that some
families must keep and raise these animals for
those who live in the cities and elsewhere who do
not keep any. The families living on the farms
in most instances have more than the average.
The most of these animals are raised for food. In
fact nearly all except horses and mules, event-
ually are eaten, and these are eaten in some
countries.

It is estimated that a horse at work will eat,
on an average, 100 bushels of oats, or their equiv-

120 NATURE-SCIENCE

alent, and one and one half tons of hay or its
equivalent in pasturage or other "roughness" in
a year. There is some tendency to feed horses too
much grain. It is thought that the proper allow-
ance of food per day for every one thousand pounds
live weight of animals should be 20 to 25 pounds,
half of which should be grain.

One estimate of food for a working horse is an
average of 22.5 lbs., dry matter for each 1000 lbs.
live weight per day. This should contain one and
'eight-tenths lbs. of digestible protein and eleven
and eight-tenths lbs. of digestible carbohydrates
and fats, a nutritive ratio of about one to seven.

With cows it should be about the same as
for horses, except that the nutritive ratio should
be about one to five and one half. This suggests
the enormous amount of food necessary to maintain
the animal population and the large area of land
required to produce it. No other nation in the
world does it, or could do it.

Th2 Horse. — It must not be inferred that our
horses are descended from the 'Svild horses" of
•our western prairies or from those of other
•countries. These so-called wild horses have de-
scended from those that have escaped from man.
Within historic tiaies no real wild horses have
been known.

Investigations in comparative anatomy have
-demonstrated that their structure is but a modi-
fication of the same general plan upon winch the
tapirs and rhinoceroses are formed, and the dis-
■covery and restoration of the characters of extinct
species, especially that conducted comparatively

AND AGRIOULTURE. 121

recently in the fossiliferous strata of North Ameri-
ca, have revealed numerous intermediate stages
through which the existing horses appear to have
passed in their modifications from a very differ-
ent ancestral form.

The remains of an animal has been found that
seems certainly to have been a horse, much like
the present horse except that he was much
smaller and in place of one toe and hoof on each
foot he had three. In deeper strata has been
found a similar one with five toes upon each foot.
The splint bones, the slender bones on either side
the long bone just below the ''knee" (really the
wrist) joint, are all that is left of the two outside
toes of the three-toed horse. These bones are
jointed at the top to help form the knee, and run
to a point before they reach the fetlock joint be-
low.

The only relations to the horse now in exis-
tence are the domestic ass, the wild ass of
Abyssinia and the Zebra and the Quagga of South
Africa. This relationship may be inferred not
from resemblance only but also from the fact that
both the horse and the ass occasionaly show dark
stripes down the sides of the shoulders and fre-
quently bars on the sides and back of the legs.
These colors and markings come out when there
has been some mixed breeding; when strains of
blood have been brought together that do not
harmonize ; when the characters of the improved
strains "cancel out," leaving the opportunity for
the appearance of these ancient characters long

122 NATURE-SCIENCE

since "bred out" except when "reversion to type"
brings them back again.

We can imagine the original wild horses in-
habiting the same general regions as the wolves^
and, since the principal means of defense lies in
rmming, and the wolf is also fleet of foot, horses
developed into the fleetest and most enduring of
animals, making them of special value to man in
hunting, warfare, and later, as the civilization of
man progressed, the usefulness of this most useful"
animal increased until we note that the size, style
and action became as various as their various uses
and we have different breeds of horses for dilferent
purposes. "The attempt to produce a type of
animal to fill a certain use gives rise to a breed."
When this attempt is made simultaneously in
different countries we have more than one breed
designed for the same service, differing only in
unimportant respects.

Thus we have the different breeds of draft
horses, each excellent, for each of the countries,
England, Scotland, Belgium and France. We
have also, for example, the Percheron and the
French Draft two types of France, as the result
of different ideas of breeders in the same country
with regard to the draft horse.

The modern draft horse traces directly back
to the large horse of the middle ages found only
in"Flanders"(now Northern France and Belgium) ►
The demand for a heavy horse came because of the
increase in weight of armor, so a "charger," able
to carry a knight and full armor for both man and
horse was bred up from this "Flanders" stock and

AND AGKIOULTURE. 123

became the favorite wherever chivalry flourished
in Western Europe.

Fully as interesting is the history of the
thoroughbred, beginning with the crusades in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and having its
origin in the Arabian horse "bred for a thousand
years and more for speed, endurance and faithful,
ness to his master." The trotting horse of to-day-
an American "creation," has for a foundation the
best blood of the Arabian and the old English
horse.

The modern Percheron represents the French
use of its Arabian blood which becomes fused in-
to the common blood of the country largely in use
upon its farms. This is why the Percheron has
more and better action than all other draft breeds
which have descended more directly from the orig-
inal heavy horse without the infusion of Arabian
blood.

The Belgian, the Shire and the Clydesdale
represent the old original stock of heavy "Flan-
ders." The French Coach is the blood of the
thoroughbred upon the best of the lighter horses
of France.

In America we have bred all tliese breeds in
line with their original purpose, and we have all
of them Americanized, so to speak, and there are
no better horses in the world. The draft horse is
the one the American farmer can produce most
successfully from a marketable point of view.

Some of the most important breeds of horses
are as follows : —

Draft Horses or Heavy Breeds.— 1 . The Perch-

124 NATURE-SCIENCE

eron, (from the province of Perclie where they
were developed,) France; 2. French Draft, also
developed in France ; 3. Belgian Draft, Bel-
gium, developed by Belgium farmers ; 4. Clydes-
dale, Scotland; 5. Sull'olk Punch, Eastern
England; 0. English Shire, also Eastern Eng-
land.

Carriage or Coach Horses, — 1. French Coach,
France; 2. Cleveland Bay, England; 3. German
Coach, Germany; 4. Hackney, England.

Roadsters and Light Breeds. — 1. The Thor-
oughbred, England; 2. American Trotter; 3.
American Saddle Horse, bred in Kentucky and
Virginia.

Cattle. — The origin of our common cattle is
not certainly known, but it is thought the original
wild stock was found in Western Asia or South-
ern Europe. Whatever their source, our present
breeds are descended from European stock.

The nearest approach to cattle in this country
at the time of its discovery were the bison.

Th.e so-called ''wild" cattle of the western
plains were, like the ''wild" horses, really ferae,
having escaped from the Spaniards in the early
attempts at colonization.

Our present breeds are supposed to be not
more than one or two thousand years removed
from wild animals, and the longest record of any
breed is not yet one hundred and twenty-five years
old.

It is more than likely that all modern Euro-
pean and American breeds of cattle have de-
scended from the auroch, or European bison, once

AND AGRICULTURE. 125

widely distributed but now nearly extinct, except
when protected in the Lithuanian forests, etc.

Out of this original stock, if this is correct^
and whether of one or more species, Europe has
produced all the modern breeds of cattle. This
country has not produced a variety sulhciently
improved or important to be called a distinct
breed. To Western Europe, especially to Eng-
land, belongs the distinction not only of improve-
ment in breeds, but of the production of new
breeds.

The four great beef breeds are the Short
Horns, the Herefords, the Aberdeen Angus and
the Galloway. The first two came from England
and the last two from Scotland. To these, among
important beef cattle, may be added the Sussex,
from the country of Sussex, England.

The Herefords were known in England one
hundred and fifty years ago, as Longhorns. They
were spotted red and white with mottled faces
and longhorns. They were used for labor, but
came to be much used for beef about the time of
the American revolution. By improvement they
gradually assumed their present beautiful red
color, with clear white faces and full white breasts
and came to be called Herefords from the shire
where they had been developed. No breed excels
them on the range, that is, for makii.g beef prin-
cipally from grass.

About the same time, in the shire of Dur-
ham, England, and along the river Tees, there
progressed an improvment of a large kind
of cattle, better milkers than the Longhorns„

126 NATURE-SCIENCE

locally known as Teeswater cattle. These cattle
received the best attention of a number of the
best farmers of Durham, and so the Teeswater
cattle improved and became popular over Eng-
land, gradually becoming known as Shorthorns to
distinguish them from the Longhorns.

When these two breeds afterwards came to
America, the Longhorns were called Herefords,
after their native shire, and the Teeswater cattle
were called, first Durham, after their native
shire, but afterwards Shorthorns.

While these breeds were being improved, and
during our war for indepencence, a half-wild,
black, shaggy, hornless lot of cattle were feeding
on the hills of Galloway in Southwest Scotland.
They were rough and uncouth but thick meated,
and by improvement have come to be among the
best beef cattle of to-day. These are the hardy,
hornless Galloways.

The Aberdeen Angus, named from their home,
Aberdeen and Angus, two shires of Southeast
Scotland, are the last, the youngest and the finest
finished of all the beef breeds. They excel as
yard and stall feeders, and as show-ring cattle.
They are shiny, black and hornless, with bright
intelligent faces and erect ears, a distinct breed
that will never be confused with others, not even
the shaggy, black hornless Galloways.

The dairy breeds are the Jersey, from the Isle
of Jersey ; the Ayrshire, from Scotland (the shire
of Ayre;) the Holstein-Friesian, from Holland
and Denmark ; and the Brown Swiss, from Swit-
zerland.

AND AGRICULTURE. 127

Other and minor breeds are the Devons, the
bright, quick red cattle from Devonshire, England ;
the Dutch-Belted ; the Red-Polled, the red and
hornless Norfolk and Suffolk, of England ; the
Kerry, from Ireland ; the Pembroke, huge cattle
from "Wales ; and the West Highland, fierce shag-
gy looking cattle from Scotland.

The typical beef cow is squarely built, back
and loins full, stomach line parallel with the back
line which is straight. The legs are thick and full,
hips evenly fleshed and neck full and short. The
face is short, the bones of fine texture, the skin
soft and the eyes should be bright.

The dairy cow presents a decided wedge-
shaped appearance, from whatever point of view.
The back line is crooked, hip bones and tail bone
prominent, the thighs are thin and bearing little
flesh, and there is little flesh on the back and
shoulders. The neck is long and thin. The udder
should be full but not fleshy, attached well behind
and extending well forward. The skin should be
soft and pliable and the bones should be of fine
texture.

A good sire is necessary to the improvement of
a herd of cattle. The improvement from common
stock upward is, — the first generation is one half
pure ; the second is three-fourths pure ; the third
is seven-eights pure; the fourth is fifteen-six-
teenths pure, etc.

Sheep. — It is thought the sheep was the first
animal domesticated by man. From the earliest
times the lamb has been the symbol of innocence.

The nearest wild relatives of our domestic

128 NATURE-SCIENCE

sheep are the Big Horn of tlie Rocky Mountains
and tlie nearly related species scattered all over
the mountain region of western North America
and Central Asia, etc. The camel of Western
Asia and Northern Africa, and the Llama, Alpaca,
Vicuna, etc., of the Andes regions of South
America, are more remote relatives. Goats, both
the common and the Angora, are near relatives.

While the true origin of the sheep is not
known, there is reason to suppose that their wild
progenitors were of a dark color ; first, because an
occasional black, or rather brown, sheep appears
in our flocks and second, because these dark sheep
have coarse, inferior wool and appear in every way
more primitive and unimproved than the general
average of sheep.

In any case it is almost certain that the pro-
genitors of our sheep w^ere inhabitants of the hills
of Western Asia and of the region round about
the Mediterranean Sea. They have left four dis-
tinct types of sheep, as follows :

1. The Persian Sheep, which is large, heavy
and with a tendency to lay on fat at the rump and
often on the tail itself — the so-called fat-tailed
sheep. Most of the "fiddle strings'' of commerce
are made in Germany from the small intestines
of these sheep.

2. The Fezzan Sheep of Northern Africa with
their long legs, bulging foreheads, pendulous ears
and heavy mane.

3. The Merinos, or fine-wooled sheep, coming
originally from Spain. They are generally heavily
horned, except as the horns have recently been

AND AGRICULTURE. 129-

bred off, are much the smallest sheep in the world
and carry the finest fleece known.

4. The coarse-wooled sheep, of uncertain
origin but of many breeds are characteristic of
England and are extensively bred in this country.

As has been said, the Merino sheep originated
in Spain ; from thence they spread north into
France, northeast into Saxony and also across the
Atlantic into the United States. A few were
sent by the king as a present to a friend in
Australia, whence they spread to New Zealand.

Those that spread into France developed intO'
a long-legged, plain sheep with a somewhat
lighter fleece, carrying less oil, or "grease" than
the original Spanish Merinos. They were im-
ported into this country a generation ago under
the name of French Merinos, and recently they
have commenced to come over under the name
Rambouillet (pronounced ram boo lay).

Those Merinos that spread to Saxony became
very much reduced in size and in vigor, but de-
veloped a fleece of the finest wool ever seen by
man. This wool came into great favor, especially
for yarn, but the growing cheapness of silk finally
ruined the call for the Saxon fleece and this type
of Merino is almost extinct.

Under the hand of our breeders those brought
to America flourished and the fiber became longer
and finer and was given a lustre not found in the
original Merino. One peculiar fact in this con-
nection is that this was accomplished only with
enormous development of wrinkles and immense-

130 NATURE-SCIENCE

quantities of "grease," the yellow, oily gum so
characteristic of fine-wooled sheep.

Those Merinos sent to Australia flourished
and the climate proved especially favorable to the
best development of the Merino fleece. Austra-
lia, New Zealand and neighboring islands rapidly
stocked themselves with Merino sheep. The
Spanish supply was soon practically exhausted
and the Australians soon learned that the best
available Merinos were to be found in America.
Prices became almost fabulous, and this trade
became so extensive that Vermont and New
Hampshire, then almost the only sheep raising
states, could not supply the demand, and with the
ixise in prices the raising of Merinos spread west-
ward until Australia became not only full from
■our makets, but she discovered she could not only
produce her own breeding flocks, but *that she
<5ould grow a better Merino and produce a better
grade of fine wool than any other known region.
She has been so extensively in the business ever
since as not only to control the market in fine
wools, but even to lead to the building of ships
for the ''Australian frozen meat trade" with
Europe.

But all this time a very difl'erent class of sheep
were extensively bred in England where the Mer-
ino never succeeded and where sheep are bred for
mutton rather than for wool.

There is no evidence of any relationship be-
tween these and the Merinos, since the origin of
both is unkown. There is little resemblance, for
^the English sheep are much longer and coarser

AND AGRICULTURE. 131

than the Merino, generally destitute of horns,
with a longer, coarser fleece.

From these English sheep have developed the
modern breeds of coarse wooled sheep. These
may be divided, however, into two classes, the
long wools and the medium wools.

The three classes of sheep comprise the fine-
wooled breeds, — American Merino, Delaine Mer-
ino and Rambouillets ; the medium wooled breed, —
Southdowns, Oxford Downs, and Cheviot; the
long wooled breeds, — Leicester, Lincoln and Cots-
wold.

Sheep serve three purposes : They make a
good quality of meat ; they make our most useful
clothing, which no other animal can do ; and they
improve the land on which they are pastured.

Swine. — The domestic pig is descended from
either the Peccary of Central America, the Wart
Hog of Southern Africa, the Wild Boar of West-
ern Europe, or the Malay Hog, or Deer Hog of
Southeastern Asia.

From whichever he may have come, we are
indebted to the Chinese for our swine. These
•people succeeded in developing a very quick grow-
ing, early maturing, but a small if not delicate
unimal. Neither Europe, Africa, nor America
domesticated its wild hog, but Europe, thinking
the Chinese pigs too small and delicate, improved
them by crossing with the larger and coarser wild
boar.

In this way the English breeds were pro-
duced, especially the Berkshire, which had the
largest amount of wild blood of any, and also the

132 NATURE-SOIENOE

"White" breeds of various sizes, all of which, and
especially the smaller ones, contain a compar-
atively high per cent of Chinese blood.

All our breeds either came to us from Eng-
land or else have originated here out of Englisk
stock.

The early European colonists in this country
soon learned the value of Indian corn as feed for
the pig, and so corn and the pig developed to-
gether in America.

The first great corn growing region of America*
was in and about Chester County, Pennsylvania^
and here developed the strain of white hogs,
founded upon English stock, and now known every-
where as ''Chester Whites," the first American,
breed of hogs.

Later on when the Miami Valley became the
great corn growing region, another breed of hogs
was developed. At first a strong-boned, coarse^
upstanding spotted hog, it has developed into a>
fine finished, truly American hog of fine form and
of a uniform black color. It was called at first
McGee, Warren County, Poland and finally
Poland-China. The bulk of refining blood for its.
formation was furnished by the American Berk-
shire, the original of which had long before been,
imported from England.

The most important large breeds of hogs are^
Chester White, Improved Yorkshire, Tamworth,.
Duroc-Jersey, Cheshire; among medium breeds
are Berkshire and Poland-China; and smaller
breeds, Victoria, Suffolk, Essex and small York-
shire.

AND AGRICULTURE. 133

OUTLINE QUIZZES.

(fifth paper.)

1. What are the natural methods of plant
propagation?

2. What is necessary to the germination of
seeds?

3. What is a plumule? A cotyledon?

4. What is a layer? A cutting? A cion? A
€tock? What is budding?

5. What salt water fish ascend rivers to
«pawn?

6. What are the respiratory organs of fish?

7. What functions are ascribed to the swim-
ming bladder of fishes?

8. Describe the eye of a fish.

9. What are the processes of heat transfer-
ence?

10. Illustrate each process of heat transfer-
ence.

11. What is meant by the refraction of light?

12. What is an argillite? An aphanite? A
porphyry?

13. What are tides? Their cause?

14. How have all farm animals originated?

15. What is the meaning of Ferae?

16. For what purpose are farm animals used?

17. How much will a horse eat in a year? A

cow

9

18. From what did the horse originate? The
«ow?

134 NATURE-SCIENCE

19. What are the characteristics of the beef
cow? A dairy cow?

20. Trace the origin of the sheep? The pig?'

AND AGRICULTURE. 135:

(sixth paper.)

«Oh, world, as God has made it ! all is beauty."

SIXTH LESSON.

Plants.— A study of the characteristics of
flowers, their likenesses and their differences, by-
comparison, in other words, the identification of
plants, necessitates some effort at simple classifi-
cation at least.

The best divisions, and those determined up-
on by botanists generally are based on the struct-
ure of the flowers, and the fruit or the seeds.
Some references are also made to the form and ar-
rangement of leaves. Technical works on this
subject have formed series of great groupes,,
bringing together under a common head plants
quite different in appearance but whose flowers
are very similar.

In the plants of the common Pulse family the-
flowers, fruit and seed are in all formed or ar-
ranged in the same manner, or nearly so, as we
find by careful examination, although some are
trees, as the redbud, the honey locust and the
black locust ; others are shrubs, as the wisteria;
and still others are herbs, as the peas, beans,
vetch, clover, etc. Notice in the flowers of this
family the sepals are more or less united, the five
points alone being free, inside of which is the
corolla, with its five very unlike petals. The
stamens, too, are arranged peculiarly ; the ovary
is simple and free from the calyx ; the fruit is

136 NATURE-SCIENCE

usually a one-celled pod. These points may not
be so readily discovered in the flower of the
■clover, but patience and close investigation will
reveal that it is similarly arranged. This family
is also known as leguminosae, from the Latin,
iegumen, vegetables, pot-herbs ; this name is
given because many of the plants of this family
are food products.

In like manner, it will be found that the
plants of the rose family have flowers with no im-
portant difference except in the ovary, and con-
sequently in the fruit. The calyx is five-lobed,
the petals five inserted with the stamens on a
disk that lines the calyx-tube, and the stamens
are usually numerous. The fruit is a pome, a
stone fruit or a group of stone-fruits, or one to
several akenes or follicles, seldom a berry or
capsule. Example of flowers to study are those
of the quince, pear, apple, crab-apple, American
and European mountain ash, service, red haw,
raspberry, blackberry, rose, plum, peach, cherry,
etc. These plants are all classed in the rose
family because their flowers have the same struct-
ure as that of the rose.

The Composite family is important also and
its members are easily recognized. The flowers
are in a dense head, on a common receptacle, sur-
rounded by an involucre composed of many bracts.
There are usually five stamens inserted on the
corolla and the anthers are united into a tube
surrounding the style. The flower heads vary not
only in appearance but in size. The corolla is

AND AGRICULTURE. 137

■either strap-shaped or tubular. The fruit is an
akene.

Three divisions may be made of this family,
according to the shape of the flower, some have
both strap-shaped and tubular flowers. Among
these are : Golden-rod asters, dasies, sunflowers,
elecampane, daisy, fleabane, golden ragwort,
yarrow, Black-eyed Susan, blue spring daisy, etc.
Others have only strap-shaped leaves, as dande-
lion, wild lettuce, chicory, etc. The third
division consists of those which have only tubular-
shaped blossoms, as thistle, tansy, iron-weed,
boneset, trumpet flower, blazing star, white
«nake-root, salt-marsh fleabane, etc.

The blue spring daisy is the only one of these
which appears in the spring. The Black-eyed
Susan comes in July and the others in August,
September and October, mostly in September.

The golden-rod is a very popular and familiar
flower. It should be studied as an illustration of
a composite flower, as should also others nearly as
familiar, as the sunflower, chicory, the thistle and
Black-eyed Susan. Note the character of the
petals ; the insect visitors of each ; their purpose.

Call attention to the generic name of golden-
rod, solidago, a word taken from the Greek, mean-
ing ''to make whole," referring to the healing
properties attributed to the plant. About eighty
species of golden-rod are native to the United
States.

The mustard family is distinguished as con-
sisting of herbs with pungent, watery juice,
having four sepals and four petals, their upper

138 NATURE-SCIENCE

part spreading in the form of a cross, hence also
the name gruciferae. The flowers have six
stamens, the two outer ones shorter than the four
inner ones and a single two-celled pistil with two
parietal placentae forming the kind of pod called
a silique.

The flowers are arranged in racemes and are
so nearly alike that an examination of the fruit
and seed is necessary, usually, to determine the
genera and species. The following are among the
plants that may be studied as examples of this
family : Pepper grass, tongue grass, horse-radish,
mustard, water-cress, toothwort (two -leaved),
crows foot, shepherd's purse and sweet alyssum.

The plants of the lily family are mostly herbs
with regular symmetrical flowers, perianth free
from the ovary ; stamens, nearly always six, one
before each division of the perianth ;
ovary usually three-celled fruit, a pod or berry.
The divisions of the perianth are colored nearly
alike, with one exception. Plants of this family
which may be interesting study are : White
hellebore, Indian poke, garlics, wild onion, lilies,
tulips, adder's tongue, dog-tooth violet, hya-
cinths, asparagus, Solomon's seal, lily-of-the-
valley, trillium.

The mint family comprises mostly herbs, with
square stems with opposite leaves, more or less
aromatic. It will be noticed that the leaves are
without stipules, and the flowers are generally in
cyme-like clusters, auxiliary, and often grouped
in terminal spikes or racemes. The calyx is tubu-
lar, usually two-lipped. Corolla also usually two-

AND AGRICULTURE. 139'

lipped. Stamens, four, two long and two short,,
or sometimes there are only two stamens. The
fruit consists of four nutlets, corresponding to the
four deep lobes of the ovary. The plants for study
comprised in this family are horehound, catnip,
motherwort, garden sage, garden thyme, mint, etc.
The grass family consists mostly of herbs
with usually hollow stems closed and enlarged at
the nodes. The leaves are alternate two-ranked
with sheathing bases split open on the side oppo-
site the blade.

The flowers are nearly or quite destitute of
floral envelopes, solitary, and borne in the axile of
scaly bracts called glumes. The fruit is a grain..
They should be distinguished from sedges which
have usually solid, triangular stem, and three
ranked leaves whose base, when sheathing is not
slit. Examples of grasses, Wheat, Indian Corn,
Timothy, etc.

In the study of all these families their useful-
ness to man and their utility in the economy of
nature should be kept in mind and emphasized as
occasion presents itself. For example, in the
consideration of the Pulse or Leguminose family,
in the growing season a clover plant should be dug:
up. The little swollen points or places in the
roots called nodules or tubercles are the home of
the bacteria, which in their development take the
nitrogen from the air. At their death, which oc-
curs in a short time, this nitrogen is available for
common plants which need large amounts of ni-
trogen. Not being able to get their own supply
from the atmosphere, they are dependent en-

140 NATURE-SCIENCE

tirely upon the soil supply which is never large
and which is soon exhausted by growing crops and
by rains. It is necessary then that the same
supply of soil nitrogen be kept up in some way.
It is too expensive to do so by supplying it in the
form of Commercial fertilizers, since it is esti-
mated that in this form it will require about four
pounds at, say, fifteen cents per pound to grow a
single bushel of wheat. By growing clover or
other leguminous crops, thus securing nitrogen
from the air through the root tubercles it can be
obtained for nothing. Plants may be classified as
nitrogen producers and nitrogen exhausters. Only
those plants whose roots have nodules or tubercles
produce nitrogen.

Animal Studies — Interest in these studies will
not be lessened by selecting types whose activities
are known and can be studied from a practical
standpoint. We shall now study a few insects,
both injurious and beneficial.

Injurious Insects. — The Hessian Fly derives its
name from the probability of its having been in-
troduced into this country with the bedding straw
of the Hessian soldiers during the Revolutionary
War. It has two broods as the flies appear in the
spring and in the autumn. At each of these times
the fly, a minute, two winged insect, lays twenty
or thirty eggs in the crease of the leaf of a young
plant. In about four days in warm weather, they
hatch, and the pale red larvae crawl down the leaf
working their way in between it and the main
stalk, passing downward, till they come to a joint
just above which they remain, a little below the

AND AGRICULTURE. 141

surface of the ground, with the head toward the
root of the plant. Two or three larvae are suf-
ficient to weaken a plant by sucking the sap and
by embedding themselves, by simple pressure of
the body, in the side of the stem. In five or six
weeks the larvae are full grown. Their skin
hardens, becomes brown, then turns to a bright
chestnut color. This is the puparium or flax-seed
state. In two or three weeks the semipupa be-
comes detached from the old one. The larvae
remains through the winter in this puparium.
Towards the beginning of May the pupa becomes
fully developed and about the last of May it
emerges from the brown puparium "wrapped in a
thin white skin which soon breaks and is then at
liberty." The flies lay their eggs on the young
wheat for a period of three weeks, and then dis-
appear. The larvae from these eggs take the
flax-seed form in June and July and most of them
are thus left on the stubble at harvest time. The
best preventative against their attacks is to burn
the stubble. There are four known parasites on
the Hessian Fly, one of which preys on the eggs,
another on the larvae, and the other destroys it in
the flax-seed state.

The Chinch Bug, while it does most damage,
perhaps, to the wheat crop, infests also oats, corn,
sugar cane, in fact all kinds of grain. The young
bug is at first wingless and of a bright red color,
changing with age to brown or black and are
marked with a white band across the back. It is
said that the female is occupied about twenty
days in laying her eggs, about 500 in number.

142 NATURE-SCIENCE

The larvae hatches in fifteen days and there are
two broods in a season, the first maturing from
i;he middle of July to the middle of August and
the second late in the autumn. The eggs are laid
•in the ground usually at the depth of an inch or
more. It is also stated that some of them con-
tinue alive in concealment during the winter.
Long continued, wet, cloudy, cool weather is not
farvorable to their development. The early sowing
of small grain in the spring and the burning of all
straw, weeds, stalks, etc., on or near the ground
to be cultivated discourage their multiplication.

The Corn Worm, or Boll Worm, is the insect
whose larvae are found in the tips of corn ears.
In some portions of the country as in parts of
Southern Kansas, scarcely an ear of corn is free of
it. It is an enemy to cotton also, and attacks
«ven beans, peas and other garden vegetables.
The larvae grows to a length of about one and one-
half inches, then buries itself in the ground where
it becomes a brown chrysalid, and emerges as a
vclay-yellow moth in three or four weeks.

The Cabbage Butterfly was introduced from
Europe into Quebec about 1859 and soon became
abundant in the United States. It is now our com-
mon white butterfly, and perhaps the only one we
are justified in destroying. A single one of these
butterflies has been known to contain between 400
and 500 eggs.

The Colorado Potato Beetle reaches the adult
«tage within a month after hatching from the
yellowish eggs. The larvae are pale yellow with
.a reddish twinge and a lateral row of black dots.

AND AGRICULTURE. 143

The adults pass the winter in the ground, emerg-
ing late in the spring, just in time to lay their
eggs upon the young potato leaves. The larvae
devour the leaves to such an extent as to some-
times cut off the entire crop in some localities.
The loss to this country alone from the ravages of
this beetle is enormous each year. There are var-
ious beetles, hemiptera, and a species of Tachina
Fly which prey upon the larvae. A mixture of
one part of Paris Green to twenty of flour or
plaster sprinkled upon the potato plants the first
one or two weeks after they come up will prac-
tically destroy the beetle for the season.

Aphids or Plant Lice. — Among the most trouble-
some insects are those which live upon nearly
every useful plant, puncturing the plant and
sucking the sap. That which infests the corn, the
corn louse, attacks the roots ; the grape phyllaxera
lives on both the roots and leaves and even on the
bark. Most species, however, attack the young
fruit, leaves and the buds, as the peach tree aphid,
the green apple tree aphid, and the aphids which
infest the rose, the elm and other shrubs and
trees.

All these aphids make interesting and profit-
able study. Many species excrete a sweet fluid
through a minute pair of tubes on the back. This
fluid, called honeydew, is injurious to trees, etc.,
since it makes various mildews possible. These
are the aphids cared for by ants for their excretion.
Many kinds of aphids produce also a white,
powdery, downy growth as a means of protec-

144 NATURE-SCIENCE

tion by concealment or by rendering themselves-
unpalatable to birds.

Apliids have antennae with from five to seven
joints ; beak three-jointed and developed in both
sexes ; legs long and slender with two-jointed
tarsi ; males and females are winged and also the
last brood of asexual ones, but the early summer
broods are wingless. Of the many species whose
life story is practically the same, local conditions
and interests will determine largely which shall
be studied.

Cutworms are the caterpillars of the different
species of the owlet moths. These are the cater-
pillars which cut off the very young plants of field
and garden even with the earth. The larvae feed
at first upon the tender grass roots and the roots
of other plants, but they are ready for their de-
structive business early in the spring when they
have attained a growth of about one inch in
length. They are not known to have any insect
enemies, but plants are somewhat protected from
their ravages by placing a cylinder of stiff paper
or tin about six inches in length about the plant,
so that it enters at the lower end about an inch
into the earth. No poisonous preparation has
proved effective in their destruction. Robins and
toads assist in their destruction, but these assist-
ants are not usually sufficiently numerous in a
locality to retard their multiplication materially^

Tent Caterpillars. — The moths of this insect
lay their eggs on the slender twigs of trees, mostly
of the apple and wild cherry, in the month of
July. The very small black caterpillars are de-

AND AGRICULTURE. 145

velcped during the summer and remain curled up
within the egg shell during the winter and fall,
after hatching just as the leaves are unfolding
and forming a web under which tlie colony lives.
TJiey feed on the tender buds, etc., and build
their tents. They may be destroyed by previously
searching for the bunches of eggs on the twigs be-
fore the tree is leaved out, and the caterpillars
may be killed with a brush or mop dipped into
strong soap-suds, or a weak solution of petroleum.
The larvae are about two inches long, hairy, with
a dorsal white stripe, with numerous fine crinkled
black lines on a yellow ground ; united below into
a common black band, with a blue spot on the
side of each ring. The moth which appears in
July, is reddish brown, with two oblique, dirty
white lines on the fore wings.

The peach tree borer has been destructive to
practically all pea^h trees in nearly the whole
United States within the past twenty years. The
moth resembles a species of wasp and appears
from the last of June to the first of September
during which time it deposits its eggs on the
trunks of peach and plum trees within a foot and
a half of the ground. These eggs are quite numer-
ous, are glued to the bark, and hatch out in about
a week. The larva crawls under the outer bark
and bores into the juicy inner bark where it re-
mains feeding, except in freezing weather, for
about ten months. It then emerges, makes its
cocoon close to the ground on the tree trunk,
and in about three weeks emerges as a moth to
begin its life story over again.

146 NATURE-SCIENCE

The Codling Moth, or Apple Worm was im-
ported from Europe, and it is estimated that it
now causes a loss of from 25 to 75 per cent of the
apple crop alone in this country and Canada, as
well as causing great loss of other fruits, as crab
apples, pears, quinces, and even plums, apricots
and cherries. The cocoon may be found from
October to May under the bark scales of apple or
pear trees, etc., or in crevices about places where
fruit has been stored. The moths emerge late in
May or early in June and they may be known by
a horse shoe of copper-colored scales on the front
wing. Very soon they begin to lay their eggs on
the growing fruit or on the leaves near by. The
larvae hatch in a few days, burrow into the core
;from the blossom end, andmature in three weeks,
when, if the apple does not fall, they spin to the
ground after eating their way out through the side
of the apple and crawl to the trunk of the tree, or
'they may crawl down the branches after eating
their way out, and make their cocoons again un-
der the bark.

The most effective means for their extermin-
ation used by fruit growers is to scrape all loose
bark from the trees early in July and fasten a
wisp of straw or a band of burlap or heavy paper
around the trunk ; then remove these bands and
collect and destroy all larvae at least once a week
during the month of July.

Beneficial Insects. — The ichneumon Hies, which
are parasitic upon other insects, comprise several
thousand species. The eggs are laid by the parent
either on the outside or within the caterpillar or

AND AGRICULTURE. 147

other larva on which the young is fed. When
hatched it devours the fatty portion of its victim
which gradually dies of exhaustion. The ovipos-
itor of some species is very long and is fitted for
boring through very dense substances. When
about to enter the pupa state the larva spins a
cocoon, consisting in the larger species of an inner
covering and escapes as a fly through the skin of
the caterpillar.

The principal study of these insects should be
in the observation of their habits and mode of life
and the part they play in Nature's great plan.

The braconids and chalcis flies are only sub-
divisions of ichneumons and are among the most
important of these valuable insects.

The syrphus flies owe their importance to the
fact that their larvae prey upon plant lice and other
soft bodied insects. There are more than three
hundred different species of them.

The tachina flies resemble house flies in form.
They have a stout bristly appearance and their
larvae are parasitic upon almost all insects. The
white, oval eggs are deposited upon the body of a
caterpillar, or even of some insects, where they
stick as tightly as if glued. On hatching, the
maggots burrow into the victim, feeding upon
the tissues and juices. The larva spins no cocoon,
but the outer skin hardens into an oval case called
the pupa case or puparium where the larvae
change into pupae from where they emerge as full
^rown flies in about ten days.

"Lady birds or lady beetles are well known
from their hemispherical form ; generally red or

148 NATURE-SCIENCE

yellow color, with round or lunate blackepots.
The species, numbering more than one thousand,
are difficult to discriminate. The yellow long oval
eggs are laid in patches, often in a group of plant
lice which the larvae eagerly devour. Both larvae
and adults feed upon the plant lice, eggs and
larvae of other insects.

It will be profitable also to study other beetles
serviceable in destroying injurious insects, as Hon
beetles, tiger beetles and bombardier beetles. The
first feed upon caterpillars, corn worms, and one
species devours corn worms.

Dragon files, damsel flies, and caddis flies
will also amply repay observation and study.

Agriculture.

(sixth paper.)
BACTERIA.

Scientists have had some difficulty in deciding
whether bacteria are plants or animals. Their
food and what little structure they possess would
indicate that they are plants closely related to the
fungi.

They exist by millions everywhere, or rather,
they may exist anywhere, in the air, in the water
and most other liquids, in the soil or on the sur-
face of objects. They are so small that the aid of
a microscope is necessary to distinguish them.
In form, some are spherical, others are cylindrical
some are spiral, and many are bent and twisted,
the elongated forms, into queer shapes. It re-
quires several thousand, laid side by side or end
to end, to make a line an inch in length.

AND AGRICULTURE. 149

Their discoverj'^ is attributed to Anton van
Leeuwenhoek in 1683. It was left to Robert Koch
and Louis Pasteur, in 1880 to demonstrate their
power to cause disease. Bacteria are so small
they are thus taken into dust particles in the air
and thus taken into the body with the breath, or
with water or milk.

Not all bacteria are harmful. Some are very
useful indeed and not enough is known of others
to determine whether they are harmful or useful
'to mankind.

The single bacteria consists of a single cell,
.and, small as it is, this simple cell carries on all
the processes of life.

They multiply by division. That is, the sim-
ple cell divides into parts, making two cells in-
stead of one. This process continues, each of
these two cells after growing for a short time
-dividing and thus making four cells. These four
in like manner produce eight, the eight produce
sixteen, and so on. It has been found that some
kinds divide at intervals as short as half an hour
while others require a longer time. It may
thus be seen how very rapidly they may multi-
ply. Too great an increase, however, may soon
exhaust the food supply in any one place, or they
may be poisoned by effect of too many living in a
small colony.

Moisture is necessary for their propagation
and growth. As spores they are on all dry sub-
stances, and in tliat state they are dormant, just
-as we have in seeds or bulbs dormant life in high-
er plants. In this condition bacteria may exist

150 NATURE-SCIENCE

for a considerable time, in some instances for
years, to become active when the necessary moist-
ure is supplied.

It is in the spore state that bacteria are car-
ried in large numbers everywhere in the dust of
the air, because of their light, dry condition and
their minuteness.

They are also carried by clothing, the hands,
etc., from contact with surfaces on which they ex-
ist, and disease germs are thus scattered, soon to
find lodgement where conditions are more favor-
able to their development and multiplication.

They may be carried in various ways, from
place to place, after the stirring up of dust from
the street, or in the house or barn ; they do not
rise and float away from a moist or liquid surface.

While a certain amount of heat is necessary
to the developement of bacteria, too much heat
will destroy them. Freezing will stop their growth
but will not destroy them ; when a sufRcient.
amount of heat is afterwards added, they renew
their activity.

Certain chemical preparations called germicides
mostly poisons, are prepared to destroy them, but
a preparation that kills one species frequently has
no eflect upon others.

The food of bacteria must necessarily be in a.
liquid condition. "When the temperature is suit-
able the bacteria flourish and cause decomposition
in dead animal or vegetable matter in a moist
state. In case of the lowering of the temperat-
ure to a certain degree, their action ceases but it
begins again with a rise of temperature to a propj

AND AGRICULTURE. 151

er degree. It will be noted that living, health j
plants and animals have poAver to resist their at-
tacks. Decay of dead animal or vegetable matter
is always due to the growth of bacteria.

Bacteria, since they form part of the dnst,
may enter the body with the air during respir-
ation. Nature has provided the nostrils with mu-
cous membrane, one function of which is to
prevent all particles of dust from entering the
lungs. If air is breathed through the mouth, dusfc
may be taken into the lungs and with it the germs
of diphtheria, grippe, pneumonia, tuberculosis,
etc., may be communicated. These germs get
into the air mainly through sputum, which after
drying may be taken up by the wind. Hence we
have regulations by the authorities with regard
to spitting in public places. These are estab-
lished for the safety of the public and should be
carefully heeded.

Germs that enter the system with food or
drink are those of typhoid fever, cholera and
other intestinal diseases. For this reason care
should be taken to destroy all those germs to pre-
vent their gaining access to drinking water, etc.

The cleanliness and the proper ventilation of
all public buildings, which are nearly always
centers of infection, cannot be too strongly em-
phasized.

We have already spoken of the relation of
bacteria to the soil in the leguminous plants. It
must also be noted the decomposition of both
plants and animals, due to bacteria, returns to
the earth as much substance as has been taken

152 NATURE-SCIENCE

from it in their growth, besides preventing the
accumulation of the bodies of dead plants and an-
imals. Permitting a piece of laud to "rest" by
permitting it to grow up in weeds, is nothing
more than alfording bacteria an opportunity to
decompose the weeds, which have served as forage
and breeding places for innumerable insects and
other small animals, as well as these creatures
themselves, in order that they may enrich the soil.
It is well known that bacteria live aleo in the
soil, helping to decompose the organic matter
mixed with it. They exist at a depth not greater
than five or six feet, however, decreasing down-
ward to that depth.

Low, wet soil, because of the acids held in
solution, prevent the growth and action of bac-
teria. Drainage and a good circulation of the air
in such soils is the remedy, since the washing out
of the acids gives the bacteria an opportunity to
work.

The farmer stores liis grain and hay in dry
condition to prevent the action of bacteria, moulds
and fungi. Apples and other fruits, as well as
meats, are dried in order to preserve them, for
the same reason, since moisture encourages and
promotes the development of bacteria, etc.

Low temperature prevents bacteria from grow-
ing and multiplying, hence fruits, vegetables and
meats are kept in cold storage except when the
temperature is naturally sufficiently low as in
winter.

Salt and sugar are also good preservatives of
fruit and meats, since bacteria cannot live in

AND AGRICULTURE. 153

them when properly prepared. The sugar must
be dry, usually, and the fruit with which it is
used must be cooked to drive out the water they
contain.

Bacteria in the Dairy. — When milk leaves the
udder of the^cow, the gas which is predominant,
carbonic acid gas, begins to pass from the milk
and gases of the air takes its place. This is
brought by the natural diffusion and solubility of
gases. As soon as milk leaves the udder of the
cow it comes in contact with germ life ; it is the
germ life which is controlled largely by the con-
ditions of the milk ; in it there are germs of many
kinds, some of which flourish readily where there
are traces of oxygen only, and others where there
is an abundance of oxygen. These germs produce
the various fermentation of milk, consequently it
makes a difference in the character of the fer-
mentation whether there is an abundant supply of
oxygen or not. Bacteriologists have shown that
where only traces of oxygen are present in a fer-
menting substance as milk, there is more likely
to result from the fermentation products which
are really detrimental to the body. Hence the
matter of methods of aeration of milk for the ad-
dition of oxygen when not properly done naturally
is engaging the attention of dairy men.

The agitation of milk aids aeration, and
since during the few moments immediately after
milking the interchange of gases between the air
and milk is greater, it follows that where milking
is in process the air must be pure, otherwise the
foulness of the air must be incorporated in the

154 NATURE-SCIENCE

milk. What must be the condition of the air in a
stall where all sorts of fermentation are going on
and in which are odors of diverse kinds. These
obnoxious substances are in the air and must pas&
into the milk with the air. It is well known that
the souring of milk is caused by bacteria. These
bacteria are in the air, on the hair of the cow, in
the dust that may rise from the floor, from the
feed, and they may even be on the milker's
hands. When these bacteria fall into the milk
they begin to grow and soon change the sugar of
the milk to an acid, provided the milk is of the
proper temperature. A moderate degree of heat
is all that is needed.

Milk kept in a deep well, in a spring house,,
or on ice may remain sweet for some time. The
cooling process does not destroy the germs, but
simply retards their action. The germs still are
there and will cause the milk to sour when a suf-
ficiently high temperature is restored. Boiling
from a few minutes to an hour will destroy bac-
teria, and this is resorted to when disease produc-
ing germs are suspected to be present. The boil-
ing, however produces a flavor that is objection-
able to some.

Bacteria are important factors in the making
of butter and cheese, since upon them depend the
flavor. Before cream can make butter of good
flavor, it must ''ripen," that is, it must be kept
at a proper temperature until it sours. We have-
learned that bacteria brings out the souring pro-
cess, and upon this the flavor depends. When,
several species of bacteria work in the same-

AND AGRICULTURE. 155

cream, the butter made from cream is poor in
quality. Each species produces a flavor peculiar
to itself. Expert butter-makers are able to con-
trol the species and growth of the bacteria they
wish to use to produce a high flavored article.
If any bacteria survive after the butter is made,
they cause the butter to become rancid. To keep
well, butter should have the water well worked
out and considerable common salt mixed in to
discourage any remaining bacteria.

Cheese making is dependent in the same way
upon growth of bacteria. Except in the mechan-
ical process of preparation and the time required
to mature, the conditions are not essentially dif-
ferent from those of butter-making.

In most instances, also, vinegar is produced
by the direct action of bacteria. The action of
the bacteria is upon the sugar in the liquid used.
The necessary conditions of temperature and
moisture being present, they change the sugar to
carbon dioxid, which passes off in bubbles from
the surface of the liquid, and alcohol, which later
becomes oxidized by the action of other bacteria,,
make a weak solution of acetic acid, or vinegar.
The "mother of vinegar" is only the vast colonies
of bacteria grown into a slimy mass. Boiled cider
keeps sweet, since the heat killed the bacteria it
contains, if kept sealed so that no others can en-
ter.

Fire blight of apple and pear trees, one of th&
most injurious of fruit diseases, is caused by bac-
teria. They grow and multiply in the cambiun^
layers, hence the tree suifers, as is shown by th«

156 NATURE-SCIENCE

blackened twigs and the withered blackened
leaves. The only remedy is to cut away the twig
about a foot below the blackened portion. Some-
times it becomes necessary to cut down and de-
stroy the entire tree. After pruning such twigs
*or limbs as have been thus afflicted, it is best to
Bterilize the knife blade by dipping it into a solu-
.tion of carbolic acid, in order to prevent spread-
ing the disease by cutting into the healthy wood
«of other trees. The germ may also be harbored
in the crab, the quince, the hawthorne, etc. They
.gain access to the tree through the blossoms or
through some wound in the bark.

It is difficult to distinguish bacteria from
jreasts and moulds without the aid of the best
mircroscopes. The study of these micro-organisms
is very interesting and highly important. Enough
iias been given to at least create a desire for
iurther study and experiment.

Naturr-g»rtf nr? txnh Agrtrultur^.

OUTLINE QUIZZES.
(sixth paper.)

1. Upon what is the best classifications of
j)lants based?

2. What is the form of the fruit in the pulse
family?

3. Why are leguminous plants so named?

4. Name the principal plants of the Rose
family.

5. What characterizes the llowers of the
-composite family?

AND AGRICULTURE. 157

6. What distinguishes the flowers of the
mustard family?

7. How would j^ou distinguish the grasses?

8. How are plants dependent upon bacteria?

9. Why is the Hessian fly so called? Where
do these flies lay their eggs?

10. Upon what plant do they live? In what
way do they injure the plant?

11. What plants are injured by chinch bugs?
In what way?

12. Where does the chinch bug deposit its
eggs?

13. How long has the cabbage butterfly ex-
isted in this country?

14. What are aphidae?

15. Are bacteria plants or animals?

16. Where do bacteria exist? What is their
form?

17. How do bacteria reproduce themselves?

18. What is necessary to the development
of bacteria?

19. In what condition must the food of the
bacteria be supplied?

20. In what ways are bacteria beneficial?
In what ways are they injurious?

JAW 20 1905