Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study

by Ontario. Department of Education

FORM IV

AUTUMN

GARDEN WORK

The regular work of cultivation of garden and experimental plots should be carefully attended to. Pupils in this Form should be able to do all kinds of garden work with a good deal of proficiency. The work of selecting the best flowers for seed production should be continued. These should be used for planting in the school garden and in home gardens as well. This part of the work might be left to the girls. The boys should be encouraged to take up the systematic selection of seed grain. To get good seed to start with, two methods may be used:

1. Decide upon the kind of grain to be selected and choose from one of the best fields a hundred of the best heads—those that are vigorous, clean, free from rust or smut, and standing up straight. When the heads are dried a little, shell the grain off them and preserve it in a jar in a cold, dry place until spring.

2. Take a quart of oats and pick it carefully, keeping only the largest and most plump kernels. Keep this for spring planting. At the same time, a sample of the poorer grains should be kept for comparison. A regular system of selection should be followed from year to year, taking enough of the largest, brightest, and most compact heads from the plot each autumn to sow a plot of equal size the next spring. After the selection of heads has been made, the remainder of the crop may be harvested, and the grain from this known as general crop from hand-selected seed of the first, second, third year, etc. If the value per acre is required, the plots should be made of a certain size easy to compute, such as one rod square or one rod by two rods. (10-1/2 ft. by 21 ft. is about 1/200 acre.) Samples of each crop should be kept in uniform bottles and labelled; for example—"From selected heads of 1911". The yield per acre in the plot from which the selected heads came should also be noted. These will be interesting for purposes of comparison and for testing duration of vitality later. If the same amount of grain is used in planting a plot each time, the change in bushels per acre may be ascertained and also in pounds per bushel. Some of the boys in this Form may wish to continue this work of improvement by selection and, if so, they should communicate with the Secretary of the Canadian Seed Growers' Association, Canadian Building, Ottawa, and receive full instructions to enable them to carry on their work practically as well as scientifically.

HERBACEOUS PERENNIALS FROM SEED

The teacher should encourage the growing of herbaceous perennials for the purpose of beautifying the school grounds. Many plants may be started from seed at the school and given to the pupils for home planting. These plants require but little attention and provide excellent bloom in gardens and home grounds from early in spring before annuals are in bloom, on into the autumn. A list of the best varieties will be found in Circular 13, on Elementary Agriculture and Horticulture, a copy of which should be in every school. The seed plot should be fertilized and prepared in the usual way, and the seeds planted before the first of September. They may be started in June also, in which case they make more growth before winter. The plot should be well fertilized with thoroughly rotted manure and, if the soil is very dry, the plot should be well watered the day before the seeds are planted. The seeds are usually quite small and should be covered very lightly. The plot should be protected from the hot sun by means of cheese-cloth tacked on a frame. The plants should be watered twice a week in dry weather. In the late autumn, when the ground freezes, the plot should be covered with leaves or straw and some boards, which should be removed when the frost comes out in the spring.

DECIDUOUS TREES

Before the pupils of this Form leave school they should be able to recognize, by name as well as by sight, all of the species of trees found in their vicinity. To this end the teacher should help them to prepare an inventory of species of trees, shrubs, and vines of the vicinity. They should learn to distinguish the different species of maples, elms, birches, etc. A named collection of leaves helps materially in doing this. The influence of environment upon the growth and shape of trees and how trees adapt themselves to the conditions in which they live is a most interesting and profitable study, demanding careful observation, reflection, and judgment.