The Horse Pond in Spring.
“Now, boys,” said Uncle George, “I want you to watch these seeds every day. If you do so, you will learn how a seed grows into a plant; and you will learn this not from me, but from the plant itself.”
Uncle George filled a wide bottle with water from the tap, and fixed one of the five-week-old maize plants in it by means of a split cork.
“I want you to watch this plant growing,” he said, as he placed the bottle in the window. “You ought to draw it once a week. Most people think that plants draw their food chiefly from the soil. This is a great mistake.
“Plants take most of their food from the air, as you will see if you watch the growth of this plant. Of course, it has a good food store in the seed; but I think you will be surprised at the growth it makes from that food store, the bottle of tap water, and the air.”
Exercises on Lesson VI.
1. Make sketches of a soaked bean and of a soaked maize seed. 2. Place a few beans (or peas) and a few maize (or wheat) seeds in a box of damp sawdust. Water regularly. After a week dig up a seed of each and draw them. 3. Dig up a seed of each at intervals of two weeks, three weeks, and four weeks; draw and compare them. 4. Sow in a box of sawdust a few of each of the following—date stones, orange pips, walnuts, chestnuts. Keep the box in a warm place, and watch how these seeds grow.
VII.—THE HORSE POND IN SPRING.
When Frank and Tom came home from school one afternoon, they found their uncle very busy finishing a net he had made of green gauze.