I

I
 !

LIBRARY
OFFICE OF EDUCATION

c
 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE BY GRADES
EDITED BY
FRANK W. BALLOU, Ph.D.
SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, WASHINGTON, D. C.

ELEMENTARY SCIENCE BY GRADES

Book Five
 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
BY GRADES
EDITED BY

Frank W. Ballou
SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS
WASHINGTON, D. C.

BOOK I. By Ellis C. Persing and

Elizabeth K. Peeples.

BOOK II. By Ellis C. Persing and

Elizabeth K. Peeples.

BOOK III. By Ellis C. Persing and

Elizabeth K. Peeples.

BOOK IV. By Ellis C. Persing and

Edward E. Wildman.

BOOK V. By EllisC. Persing and

C. Louis Thiele.

BOOK VI. By Ellis C. Persing and

John A. Hollinger.
 i'NLE
ELEMENTARY SCIENCE?^
BY GRADES
Book Five
A NATURE STUDY AND SCIENCE READER

BY

ELLIS C. PERSING
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF NATURAL SCIENCE, WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY;
FORMERLY HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE IN
GLENVILLE HIGH SCHOOL, CLEVELAND

AND

C. LOUIS THIELE
SUPERVISOR OF EXACT SCIENCE, DETROIT

NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
 COPYRIGHT, 1930, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

All rights reserved. This book, or parts

thereof, must not be reproduced in any
form without permission of the publisher.

PUBLISHED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

©CIA 28051 rx

SEP -4
 EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
The Elementary Science Series has been prepared be¬
cause of the very earnest belief of the authors in the impor¬
tance of the subject matter to be covered, in the interests
of children in nature about them, and in their ability to
profit by a study of it.
Throughout the series the authors have kept in mind the
psychology of the child rather than the orderly scientific
arrangement of the subject matter. The vocabulary of each
book has been most carefully selected from and checked
against accredited lists of words of highest frequency in
the spoken vocabulary of young children. Moreover, the
point of view of the authors is that of explaining to chil¬
dren the everyday world about them and making it an ob¬
ject of interest and profit to them.
Simplicity has been one aim in the preparation of the
readers in order that the joy of the subject and the atti¬
tudes, habits, and ideals taught by them may not be lost in
a maze of mechanical difficulties.
The general aims and objectives throughout the series are
those set forth in the Fourth Yearbook of the Department
of Superintendence.1 The subject matter of the lessons has
been selected with a view of making it possible for teachers
to realize those aims and objectives.
The organization of the subject matter of the series
agrees in the main with that of the Fourth Yearbook course
1 Fourth Yearbook, Department of Superintendence, Ch. IV, “Ele¬
mentary Science and Nature Study” (Washington, National Edu¬
cation Association, 1926), pp. 59-112.
VI EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
and with other leading courses of study of the country.
The course can be articulated with the more formal science
course in junior-high-school grades.
The national policy of conservation of our natural re¬
sources is recognized and encouraged among pupils through¬
out the series. The protection of trees, wild flowers, and
birds is specifically taught.
Each volume of the series is organized on the basis of
seasons. For example, the study of flowers is increased in
the fall and spring months, and minimized in the winter
season. The physical sciences are largely taught during the
winter months.
Each volume contains the material for a year of instruc¬
tion. Each volume also carries suggestions to teachers on
how to handle the activities; how to obtain materials; plans
for field trips; preparation of school gardens, and other
aspects of the lessons. Although each volume is a unit in
itself, the series represents a unified program of instruction
in elementary science and nature study. The series is built
on the spiral plan and is progressive in content and style.
At the close of each chapter various suggestions and
questions are offered under the heading “Some Things to
Think About.’’ These questions and suggestions are for
the purpose of stimulating thought among the children
either before or after reading the lesson.
The books are primarily designed as readers with science
content for the school systems that have yet made no pro¬
vision in the curriculum for instruction in elementary sci¬
ence and nature study. New-type tests have been included
for the purpose of determining comprehension of the
reading assignment.
For the schools that provide for science instruction as
such even more important than the comprehension material
are the suggestions contained under the title 44 Some Things
to Do.” Since much of the instruction covered in this
 EDITOB’S INTBODUCTION vn
series of books can be given objectively through the direct
contact of children with the objects themselves, the authors
of this series have indicated what may be properly done by
teachers and pupils in making a study of elementary sci¬
ence more than a book subject. Suggestions of trips to the
zoo, excursions to the country, trips to parks and woods,
and observations of those activities within the home that
are based on scientific principles taught in the books are the
various ways suggested of making the instruction covered
in this series of books more real and more vital than such
instruction acquired exclusively from books.
The material in these books has been successfully tested
out before publication under actual classroom conditions
both in schools that used the material primarily as readers
and in schools that have permanent provision for instruc¬
tion in elementary science.
Frank W. Ballou
 CONTENTS
PAGE

INTRODUCTION : THE GARDEN. 1

CHAPTER

I. THE GARDEN IN AUTUMN. 5

II. INSECT ENEMIES OF THE GARDEN .... 13

III. SOME INSECT FRIENDS.22

IV. OUR FRIENDS, THE TOADS AND FROGS ... 32

V. THE EARTHWORM GARDENER.40

VI. PLANTING BULBS IN AUTUMN.46

VII. WEED ENEMIES OF THE GARDEN.55

VIII. FALL GARDEN FLOWERS. 62

IX. THE CHRYSANTHEMUM, THE LAST FLOWER OF

THE AUTUMN.71

X. OUR FOREST TREES.80

XI. NEIGHBORHOOD SHADE TREES.92

XII. SEED-EATING BIRDS.102

XIII. HOW WE CAN HELP THE BIRDS.110

XIV. EVERGREEN TREES.119

XV. THE BAT, A FRIEND OF THE GARDEN .... 133

XVI. RATS AND MICE.141

XVII. BURROWING ANIMALS, ENEMIES OF THE GARDEN 149

XVIII. THE WONDERS OF THE SKY.159

XIX. OUR SERVANT, HEAT.168

XX. OUR TOYS AND OTHER MACHINES .... 180

XXI. HOW ROCKS WERE MADE.191

IX
X CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE

XXII. HOW ROCKS BECOME SOIL.201

XXIII. SAND, CLAY, AND LOAM.210

XXIV. KEEPING SOIL GOOD FOR PLANTS.216

XXV. PLANNING YOUR GARDEN.224

XXVI. PLANTING THE SCHOOL GARDEN.230

XXVII. WEEDING, CULTIVATING, AND HARVESTING . . 243

XXVIII. BIRD FRIENDS OF THE GARDEN.252

XXIX. SOME STRANGE PLANTS.260

xxx. nature’s flower garden.269

XXXI. BUSY BEES.280

XXXII. THE FLOWER snow.289

SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS.295

INDEX.303
 PREFACE
Elementary Science is the natural means through which
a child becomes acquainted with the world about him.
Without suggestion or direction some children acquire con¬
siderable knowledge of their environment; but more remain
pathetically and dangerously blind and deaf to it. For the
child’s physical, intellectual, and spiritual good the edu¬
cator should see that he is made aware of the phenomena
within his observational scope, and his relations to them.
Elementary science, more than any other subject, sup¬
plies actual experience with concrete things. It is, there¬
fore, an ideal study in elementary schools, and may be used
as a basis of approach to practically every other subject.
Present practice in the teaching of elementary science and
nature study in the first six years has indicated the need
for a graded series of readers having a science content that
will conform generally in subject matter and organization
to accepted requirements. It was in the hope of supplying
such a need that this series, Elementary Science by Grades,
has been prepared.
This volume of the series, Book Five, has been designed
for use following Book Four of this series. In content, it
meets the generally accepted subject matter requirements
except for some minor modifications that were made as the
result of testing the material in the classroom.
The vocabulary has been based upon the first and second
and third groups of Gates’ “A Reading Vocabulary for the
XI
xii PREFACE
Primary Grades” and upon Thorndike’s “The Teacher’s
Word Book.”
Like other books in the series, this volume has been organ¬
ized on a seasonal basis. Subject matter has been arranged
throughout so it will be suitable for the season of the year
in which it normally will be studied. In this book, for
example, certain insects, the earthworm, trees, and certain
flowers are studied in the fall. The chapters dealing with
astronomy and the physical sciences come during the winter
months. The latter part of the book, which ordinarily will
be studied in the spring, includes chapters on gardening,
birds, trees, and flowers.
To test reading ability, different forms of new-type tests
have been included at the end of every chapter under the
heading, “Some Things to Think About.” Some teachers,
of course, may desire to substitute other forms or to sup¬
plement those that have been prepared. Suggested forms
for activities are given under the heading 4 ‘ Some Things to
Do.” Specific suggestions to the teacher on the teaching
of each chapter are placed at the back of the book.
Acknowledgment is gratefully made to Dr. Hanor A.
Webb of George Peabody College for Teachers, Nashville,
Tennessee, for reading the manuscript and for helpful sug¬
gestions and criticisms ; and to Dr. Edw^ard E. Wildman,
Director, Division of Science, Philadelphia; Elizabeth K.
Peeples, Principal of Brantwood School, Washington, D. C.,
and Dr. John A. Hoilinger, Director of Nature Study, Pitts¬
burgh, for their helpful advice on the outline, their reading
of the complete manuscript, for testing chapters of the man¬
uscript, and for reading the proof; also to Miss Helen K.
Brett, Principal of Doan Science Curriculum Center, Cleve¬
land, and David W. Russell, of Hawken School, Cleve¬
land, for reading the manuscript; to Miss Arley B. Kelley
and Miss Mildred Kearns of Hazeldell School; Miss Cina L.
Biszantz, Principal of Sterling School; Miss Margaret
 PREFACE xm

McCarthy, Principal of Sowinski School, Miss Helen G.

Miller, of the Observation School, and Miss Agnes G.
Strothman, all of Cleveland, for testing chapters of the
manuscript.
E. C. P.
C. L. T.
 INTRODUCTION
THE GARDEN

Do yon ever ask questions about things you see

every day? Are you curious about plants and ani¬
mals ? Do you sometimes wonder about the plants
in your garden? Do yon know how plants get
their food from the air and the soil? Do you ever
wonder why some soil is black and some is the
color of sand? Are you curious about the stars?
Do you wonder what they really are, and why
some are so much brighter than others?
Scientists, men who know a great deal about
these things, tell us that questioning is the begin¬
ning of learning. The next step, of course, is to
discover the answers to your questions. This
science reader has been written to answer some
questions about the way things woi*k and grow.
It will help you to discover for yourself the an¬
swers to many of your own how’s and why’s about
the common things of everyday life.
Did you ever think of a garden as a small cen¬
ter of life, not only for flowers, vegetables, and
weeds, but for birds, insects, earthworms, toads,
and burrowing animals? A boy or girl can learn
a great deal from careful observation in a garden.
It is a good place for the study of growing
things. The life stories of plants, the kinds of
l
THE GARDEN IS A SMALL PART OF THE GREAT OUT-OF-DOORS
WHICH OFFERS THRILLING ADVENTURES IN KNOWLEDGE.
 THE GARDEN 3
soil, what toads and earthworms do, the ways of
insects—all these, and many other interesting
subjects may be studied by first-hand observation
in a garden. The chapters that follow will tell
you many surprising facts about living things,
and will encourage you to discover others by mak¬
ing your own experiments with a garden or win¬
dow box.
The garden, of course, is just a small part of
the great out-of-doors, which offers everywhere
thrilling adventures in knowledge. Some of the
chapters in this science reader will take you be¬
yond the garden. In the winter when the ground
is covered with snow, you will take a peep at the
stars and learn the stories of some of the con¬
stellations. You will read about heat, and about
the simple machines which help man to do his
work.
Science is partly doing, you know, as well as
reading and observing. In this book there are
some interesting experiments which you can do
at school or at home. At the end of each chapter
you will find ‘ ‘ Some Things to Do, ’ ’ and often the
chapters themselves will suggest things to make
and to look for which you may never have thought
of before.
But first, let us go into the garden and learn

l i

Where the freshest berries grow,

Where the ground-nut trails its vine,
Where the wood-grape ?s clusters shine;
4 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
Of the black wasp’s cunning way,
Mason of his walls of clay,
And the architectural plans
Of gray hornet artisans ! ’7
From J. G. Whittier, The Barefoot Boy.
 CHAPTER I

THE GARDEN IN AUTUMN

1. Of what use are the seeds of plants?

2. Did you ever notice flowers on a cabbage plant?
3. Have you ever had a garden of your own ?

Perhaps you have had a garden of your own,

and have followed the life stories of the plants
that grew in it. In the autumn these life stories
are finished. The fleshy leaves and stems cannot
live through the cold winter, hut most plants have
grown seeds, some of which will develop into new
plants.
In almost any garden through which you might
walk in late autumn, you will see withered tomato
vines. They are dead; their life stories have
ended, but inside the tomatoes that grew on the
vines are the seeds of the plant.
If you had tomatoes in your garden, probably
you planted the seeds early last spring in a hot¬
house or in boxes indoors. When the seedlings
were about an inch tall, you may have trans¬
planted them into new boxes to give them more
room in which to grow. You must have planned
so that by the time the last frost disappears, the
young tomato plants would be several inches tall.
These plants were probably transplanted to the
garden, where they continued to grow. No doubt
5
6 ELEMENTAKY SCIENCE

you saw the yellow flowers as they came out. A

little later the petals dropped off, and tiny green
tomatoes grew from the part of the flowers that
remained on the vines. The tomatoes are the
fruit, inside of which the seeds develop. The
fruit is useful in the life story of a plant because
it affords protection for the development of the
growing seeds.
You have probably observed that the plants in
your garden have roots, stems, leaves, flowers,
and fruit. No doubt you raised some plants in
your garden because you wanted to use parts of
them for food. Did you ever think what parts of
the different garden plants are used as food by
people? Peas and beans are seeds; tomatoes and
berries are fruits; parsnips and carrots are roots.
The stems of celery and asparagus are eaten.
 THE GARDEN IN AUTUMN i

PARTS OF DIFFERENT PLANTS USED FOR FOOD.

You may think that the potato is a root, but it is

really an underground stem.
The cabbage is an unusual garden plant, for it
does not complete its whole life story in one year.
The cabbage head is a large bud which grows on
the plant during its first year. If the whole plant
is taken up, kept in the cellar during the winter,
and transplanted to the garden in the spring, a
tall stem with many branches will grow from the
head. On this stem flowers will appear, from
which seeds will be formed. From these seeds
8 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
will grow the plants which produce the cabbage
heads. Thus, you see, you must watch the cab¬
bage plant for two years to learn its whole life
story.
Celery plants receive unusual care in the gar¬
den. The stems and leaves of plants, as you
know, are usually green. You have probably
eaten the green leaves of spinach and the green
stems of asparagus.
People prefer white celery. Therefore, in the
early autumn when the plants have grown to their
full size, the gardener throws soil up along the
sides of the celery to shut out the light. Chloro¬
phyll (klo'ro-fil), the green coloring matter of
plants, forms only in the sunlight. Taking out the
color is generally called bleaching. Darkness de¬
stroys chlorophyll. The gardener calls this proc¬
ess blanching.
When celery is blanched, it is ready for market.
If it is to be kept for some time before it is used,
it must be protected from the light. Otherwise
the stalks will become green again.
Many of the plants in your garden, no doubt,
were used during the summer. The rest must be
harvested before frost and stored for winter use.
Beets, carrots, and turnips keep best when buried
in moist sand where it is not cold enough to freeze.
Pumpkins and squash should be stored in a cool,
dry place. Potatoes will keep best in the dark,
for in the light sprouts will grow faster. Par¬
snips are not injured by freezing. They may be
left in the garden and brought in when needed.
 THE GAEDEN IN AUTUMN 9
Many cities and towns hold garden exhibits in
the autumn. Sometimes these exhibits are held
in schools, particularly where there are school
gardens.
After you have harvested your crops, your
garden should be cleaned up. The removal of
rubbish will improve the appearance of the plot
and keep out the plant diseases that come from
decaying plants.
The stems and leaves which you clean up may
be made into a compost heap to be used next
spring to enrich the garden soil. Have you ever
seen a compost heap? It is made of sod, manure,
leaves and other parts of plants. These are piled
in layers, and allowed to decay for several
months. In the spring the compost heap is spread
out on the garden and worked into the soil. It is
an excellent fertilizer.
Perhaps it would be well, also, to make a hot¬
bed and a cold frame, and use it early next spring
to grow plants for transplanting to your garden.
A hotbed is a bottomless box covered with glass,
and so placed that the north side is higher than
the south side. This makes the glass slope to the
south, catching the rays of the sun. As you know,
the sun shines from the south in the early spring.
If you wish to make a hotbed, select a sunny
place, and remove about fifteen to thirty inches of
the surface soil from a spot as large as you wish
the bed to be. This pit should be dug before the
ground freezes in the autumn. The next step is
to build a frame to fit it, not forgetting to make
10 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

it six inches higher on the side which will he to the

north. Perhaps you can nse old window sashes
for a covering if you make your pit of the required
size.
About twelve days before you are ready to nse
the hotbed in the spring, fresh horse manure
should be put into the pit. Put in just enough to
allow five or six inches of good soil on top, and
still leave room for the plants to grow beneath
the glass covering. This manure will ferment and
heat the ground from below, while the sun shining
through the glass will heat it from above. This
heat makes possible the growing of plants in the
hotbed in early spring while the garden soil is
still cold. The fermentation of the manure often
produces so much heat that it is necessary to wait
 THE GARDEN IN AUTUMN 11

A COLD FRAME IS SIMILAR TO A HOTBED.

until the bed has cooled off somewhat before sow¬

ing the seeds. Tlie temperature of the soil may
be measured with a thermometer. It should not
be more than 90°.
A cold frame is similar to a hotbed, except that
manure is not used to heat it from beneath. The
sun, shining through the glass, heats the soil, and
the frame prevents the ground from cooling off
too rapidly when the sun is not shining. Plants
which have been grown indoors or in a hotbed
may be transplanted to the cold frame earlier than
they could be placed in the open garden. Some¬
times seeds of such plants as lettuce and radishes
are sown right in the cold frame so that the crops
will be ready for use early in the season.
12 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Fill in the word or words to complete these sentences

correctly.
1. Peas and beans are the.of the plant.
2. Roots of.and.are eaten.
3. The tomato is a.
4. The cabbage requires . to complete
its life story.
5. The cabbage head is a.
6.is the green coloring matter of plants.
7. A . is made of layers of sod, manure, and
parts of dead plants.
8. A hotbed is covered with.

SOME THINGS TO DO

Select the best ripe tomato that you can find on the
vines, and save the seeds for planting next spring.
They can be squeezed out in a pan, and the pulp washed
away with water. Allow them to dry thoroughly, and
put them away in a dry, cool place.
Collect seeds from other garden plants and store them
in labeled paper bags for spring planting. If there are
rats or mice about the premises, it will be well to hang
the bags on a wire so these animals cannot get them.
If you have worked in a garden during the summer,
write a report of your activities to read and discuss in
class.
Make a trip to a garden, a truck farm, or a green¬
house. Perhaps you may see celery in the process of
blanching. You will be interested in the cold frames and
the hotbeds, and you may see a compost heap.
Hold a garden exhibit in your school.
 CHAPTER II

INSECT ENEMIES OP THE GARDEN

1. What insects have you seen in the garden?

2. Which of these are harmful to the plants that grow
in the garden?
3. Can you suggest ways to protect the plants from
harmful insects?

Have you ever seen a green cabbage worm? If

you have, you would hardly guess that it is one
stage in the life story of a small white butterfly.
Insects undergo strange changes during their
short lives. Let us see what happens in the case
of the white cabbage butterfly that comes forth in
the spring from the chrysalis where it has spent
the winter.
You have no doubt seen these butterflies flying
about your garden in early spring. After two or
three days the female butterflies lay their eggs
on the leaves of such plants as the wild mustard or
shepherd’s purse. Sometimes more than 200 eggs
are laid by a single insect. These eggs are bullet-
shape with many little ridges.
In a week or ten days tiny green caterpillars
hatch from the eggs. These are cabbage worms.
To be sure, you will not find the worms born this
year devouring your cabbage heads, for it is too
early in the season. Perhaps the cabbage plants
have not even been transplanted to the garden.
13
14 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Photograph by Cornelia Clarice

LIFE STORY OF THE CABBAGE WORM ; TO THE LEFT ABOVE
THE BUTTERFLY IS THE LARVA ; TO THE RIGHT IS THE
CHRYSALIS.

However, the female butterfly always lays her

eggs upon plants that the young worms can use
for food.
Perhaps you already know that an insect in the
first stage of its life, after becoming an egg, is
called a larva. As soon as it hatches from the
egg, the young larva of the cabbage butterfly be¬
gins to feed upon the leaves of the plant on which
it finds itself. Soon its skin becomes too tight.
What do you suppose it does then? It simply
fastens itself to a leaf and crawls out of the old
skin. This process of shedding the skin is called
molting. As the larva grows, it molts five
 INSECT ENEMIES OF THE HARDEN 15

Photograph by Cornelia Clarke

CABBAGE BUTTERFLY EGGS ARE BULLET-SHAPE WITH MANY
LITTLE RIDGES.

times. When full grown, it is a worm-like crea¬

ture about one and one-fourth inches long, which
chews with its jaws like a grasshopper.
An adult insect has six legs, hut this caterpillar
or larva has eight pairs, sixteen in all. You
know, of course, that an adult insect is one that is
full grown. Ten of these legs are prolegs that will
disappear in the process of changing from a larva
to a butterfly.
When the larvas reach their full size, they be¬
come restless, wandering about until they find a
fence or a tree to which they fasten themselves
with silken threads that they spin. The larva
then becomes a pupa. A pupa is an insect in that
16 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

stage of its life story when it is growing from a

larva to an adult. It is during the pupa stage that
the wings of the butterfly are formed, the prolegs
of the caterpillar disappear, and many other
changes take place in the body of the insect. The
pupa stage in the life of the white cabbage butter¬
fly lasts about ten days, during which the adult
insect is fully formed.
Perhaps you have seen one of these white but¬
terflies break its pupal skin and come forth. It is
very interesting to watch its wings slowly unfold.
The butterfly is very quiet until its new wings
harden, and then it flies away. You have surely
seen these small white butterflies flying about the
fields and gardens in the early summer. By this
time the garden plants have a good start. Many
of these butterflies lay their eggs upon the cab¬
bage plants, and what damage the young larva
that hatch from these eggs do to the growing
heads! Sometimes the gardener sprays the cab¬
bage plant with a poison such as Paris green.
The cabbage worm eats the poison with the leaves
and dies.
What the cabbage butterfly eats is not definitely
known. Instead of mouth parts like its larva, it
has a beak that is like a tiny rubber hose. Under
its head you can see this beak coiled like a watch
spring. With such mouth parts it could not chew
leaves. Its food must be liquids. You may some¬
time have seen these butterflies drinking from a
mud puddle. When they drink, they uncoil their
beaks. With such mouth parts, the cabbage but-
INSECT ENEMIES OF THE GARDEN 17

Photograph by Paul Griswold Howes

THIS CABBAGE BUTTERFLY IS READY TO FLY ABOUT IN THE
GARDEN AFTER LEAVING AN EGG ON A LEAF.

terfly could not harm the cabbage plants. The

damage is done by the caterpillars which feed
upon the leaves.
Like most other animals, the cabbage butterfly
18 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
lias some natural enemies that try to devour it.
There are wasp-like insects and flies that attack
the caterpillars. The chipping sparrow, English
sparrow, house wren, and other birds eat the
cabbage worms in the summer, and destroy many
of the chrysalises during the winter. You will
remember that the cabbage butterfly emerged
from its chrysalis in the spring. The second
brood of larvas that hatch during the summer
spend the winter in the pupa stage. The pupal
case or chrysalis protects the insect from the cold,
but it does not save it from hungry winter birds.
Have you ever seen aphids? Perhaps you have
called them plant lice. They are very small in¬
sects that live on plants. Some of them feed upon
roots, but most of them live on the stems and
leaves, feeding upon the juices of the plants.
They have long needle-like beaks which they
thrust into the plant. With these beaks they suck
the juices, usually taking more than they require
for food. The surplus passes through the body
of the aphid as a drop of clean syrup, which is the
honeydew that the ants like so much. Perhaps
you have read how the ants care for the aphids in
order to get this honeydew. Sometimes these tiny
insects are called the ants’ cows. Can you tell
why?
In the summer most of the aphids that you
will see on the plants are little green wingless
insects. They do not lay eggs, but give birth to
their young instead. Later in the season another
form of aphid appears. It has wings, and can fly
 INSECT ENEMIES OF THE HARDEN 19

Photograph by Paul Griswold Howes

ANTS CARE FOR THE APHIDS IN ORDER TO GET THEIR
HONEYDEW.

to another plant and start another colony. In the

late autumn the females lay eggs, which last
through the winter and hatch the following
spring. From them come the aphids of the next
summer. Thus, you see that the life story of the
aphid is very different from that of the cabbage
butterfly.
 20 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
Great numbers of aphids are destroyed by
ladybird beetles. Both the adult beetles and their
larvas feed upon aphids.

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Fill in the word or words to complete these sentences

correctly.
1. The cabbage butterfly spends the winter in the
.stage.
2. In the spring it comes forth from its.
3. It lays.from which tiny, green.hatch.
4. The green cabbage worms are the . of the
white cabbage butterfly.
5. An adult insect has.legs.
6. The cabbage worm has.legs, ten of which
are called.
7. As the caterpillars grow, they.their skins.
8. The adult cabbage butterfly feeds upon.
9. Aphids feed upon the juices of.
10. The.beetle feeds upon aphids.

SOME THINGS TO DO

Make a visit to the garden to look for cabbage worms

and butterflies. Perhaps you may also find some of these
insects in the pupa stage. Bring the insects back to the
classroom for observation. If you have no insect cage,
you will find suggestions for making one in Books Two
and Three of this series.
If you find a cabbage worm, perhaps it will develop
into a pupa if you feed it well on fresh green leaves.
You will be interested, too, to watch the changes that
take place during the pupa stage.
 INSECT ENEMIES OF THE HARDEN 21
If you catch an adult butterfly, observe the coiled,
hose-like beak through which the insect drinks. Notice
also the eyes and the scales on the wings.
No doubt you are already familiar with the appear¬
ance of aphids. You can find them either on the garden
plants or upon house plants. Perhaps next summer you
can find both forms of aphid described in this chapter.
 CHAPTEE III
SOME INSECT FRIENDS

1. Can you name some useful insects?

2. Have you ever seen a ladybug or a tiger beetle \
3. How does the praying mantis get its name?

You have just read about cabbage butterflies

and aphids, which are enemies of the garden.
There are other insects that are useful because
they feed upon insect pests. In this chapter you
will read about the ladybird beetle, the praying
mantis, and the tiger beetle, all of which are
friends of the garden because they eat many of
its enemies.
Undoubtedly you know the old Mother Goose
rhyme about the ladybird beetle:

Ladybird, ladybird,
Fly away home,
Your house is on fire,
Your children will burn.

This rhyme has come to us from European coun¬

tries where the hop vines are burned after the
harvest. Many ladybird larvas are on the vines
at that time.
Of all insects beetles are found in greatest num¬
bers and in more places than other insect groups.
There are more than 100,000 kinds of beetles. In
22
 SOME INSECT FRIENDS 23

Photograph by Cornelia Clarke

THE COTTONY-CUSHION SCALE.

addition to the ladybird beetles, which you may

have called ladybugs, and the tiger beetles, both
of which you will read about in this chapter,
there are the June beetles, the potato beetles, the
fireflies, and the click beetles. The click beetles
are often known as snapping bugs. All beetles
have hard, shell-like front wings that come to¬
gether in a straight line in the back.
You have already learned that the ladybird
beetle feeds upon aphids and their larvas. They
24 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

a, LADY BUG ; b, PUPA ; C, LARVA.

also eat scale insects which live on fruit trees and

injure them.
One of these insects, the cottony-cushion scale,
was brought to this country from Australia on
some imported orange trees. Before the insect
A\ras discovered, it had spread through the orange
groves of California and Avas doing considerable
damage. Scientists Avere sent to Australia to find
out hoAV scale insects Avere destroyed there. They
returned Avith some ladybugs which they placed
in the orchards. The beetles increased rapidly in
number, and have helped greatly to destroy scale
insects. The method used Avas easier than that
of poisoning the insects.
There are four stages in the life of a beetle, just
as in that of the butterfly; those stages are the
egg, larva, pupa, and adult. Adult ladybird
 SOME INSECT FRIENDS 25

Photograph by Cornelia Clarke

SMALL CLUSTER OF EGGS LAID BY THE ADULT LADYBIRD,

SHOWING SOME NEWLY-HATCHED LARVAS.

beetles spend the winter in warm protected places.

In the spring the females lay small clusters of
eggs upon the leaves of plants. From these eggs
hatch the larvas, which begin at once to search for
the aphids or scale insects upon which they feed
until they reach their full size.
The larva does not resemble the adult beetle
very much. It does not have the hard, shell-like
wings of the adult ladybird. Its body is made up
of a number of rings on which are warts or spines
that make it appear very rough. Usually the
larva is black with orange and yellow spots.
The larva moves about rapidly, crawling from
26 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Photograph by Lynwood M. Chace

LADYBUG EXPLORES A BIRD’S EGG (BOTH ARE GREATLY

MAGNIFIED).

plant to plant in search of food. It sheds its skin

as it outgrows it, just as the cabbage caterpillar
does, and finally when it is full grown, it fastens
itself to a leaf or to a stem and goes into the pupa
stage. Pushing its warty skin up about its head,
it hangs motionless for several days, during which
it grows inside of its skin into an adult ladybird.
When the process is completed, the skin of the
pupa bursts open, and the beetle comes forth full
grown. It is a curious process that you will be
interested in watching. If you 'will look carefully
in near-by gardens, you may possibly find a lady¬
bird larva or pupa to bring to the schoolroom
 SOME INSECT FRIENDS 27

Courtesy of Nature Mayazine

THE PRAYING MANTIS WAS NAMED BECAUSE OF THE WAY IT

PLACES ITS FRONT LEGS WHEN IT IS AT REST.

where you can watch the various stages in its life

story.
The praying mantis is indeed a strange insect.
With the front part of its body held almost up¬
right, it awaits the insect that it will catch for
food. Because of the way it seats and the manner
in which the front legs are folded when not in use,
it was named praying mantis. The front legs
have a row of sharp spines on them with which it
grabs and holds its prey. These legs are not used
in walking. The praying mantis is a friendly in¬
sect. It feeds on many of the insects that injure
our gardens and orchards.
The mantis is related to the grasshopper, al¬
though you would not guess this from its ap¬
pearance. Its wings are small for the size of its
body, and it cannot jump. Its hind legs are used
for walking instead of jumping.
28 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
Although the mantis is usually found in the
tropics, several kinds are common to our southern
states, and one group is found as far north as
Maryland. One kind of mantis was brought to the
United States some thirty years ago, probably in
the form of eggs on imported fruit trees. This
kind of mantis was found near Rochester, New
York. A little later, another kind, native of
China and Japan, was also found about the same
place. Both of these groups are now common in
that part of the country, and are rapidly spread¬
ing elsewhere.
During the winter, eggs of the mantis may be
seen glued to a twig or branch in bunches, covered
by a substance that looks like dried, brownish
foam. Each bunch is about one inch long and one
inch thick. Late in the spring the eggs hatch, and
the young scatter in search of the insects upon
which they feed. Probably you know the mantis
by some other name. Sometimes it is called a
rear-horse, a soothsayer, or a mule-killer.
Because of its shape and color, the tiger beetle is
a favorite among collectors, who keep the beetles
in small bottles and glass cases. There are more
than 100 kinds of tiger beetles, varying in size
from about one-half to three-quarters of an inch.
Usually they are of a green or bronze color with
stripes or spots of yellow, some are black, and a
few are white. You can imagine how pretty these
shades of color look.
Tiger beetles are usually seen in dusty roads
and woodland paths, though they are sometimes
 SOME INSECT FRIENDS 29

Photograph by Cornelia Clarke

TIGER BEETLES ARE USUALLY SEEN ON DUSTY ROADS AND

WOODLAND PATHS.

found in cities. When you come near them, they

fly away in a flash, usually alighting somewhere
near and turning to watch you. If you continue to
follow them, they fly ahead several rods and wait
again until you come too near, when they fly again.
The grasshopper does the same thing when you
try to catch it.
Adult tiger beetles often attack very large in¬
sects, while their larvas are living insect traps.
These larvas are very different in appearance
from the brightly colored adults. They live in
holes in the sand or in dry, hard ground, where
they often burrow a foot deep. At the openings
of their burrows, they wait for the insects on
30 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
which they feed. The head of the larvas in the
openings of the burrows look so much like the
ground that other insects not seeing them, walk
right into the living trap. It is exciting to watch
them grab the insects as these pass over their
burrows.

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Select the correct ending for each of the following

sentences.
leaves.
1. The ladybird feeds upon A the juices of plants,
aphids.

on plants.
2. The ladybird lays her eggs J in the water,
on the ground.

f weeds.
3. The cottony-cushion scale lives on fruit trees.
[ garden plants.

4. The larva of the lady¬ has warts and spines,

looks like the adult beetle,
bird beetle
has hard, shell-like wings.

5. The praying mantis feeds upon harmful insects,

is a useful insect destroys weeds.
because it ^ feeds upon scales.

plants.
6. Tiger beetles feed upon -< insects.
the leaves of trees.
 SOME INSECT FRIENDS 31

SOME THINGS TO DO

Go on a trip in search of ladybugs, tiger beetles, pray¬

ing mantes, and other useful insects. Look for eggs,
larvas, and pupas, as well as for adult insects.
Make a collection of beetles, using books on insects to
discover the names of the various kinds you find.
Make a poster for your bulletin board showing the
beneficial insects of your neighborhood and showing why
and how they should be protected.
 CHAPTER IV
OUR FRIENDS, THE TOADS AND FROGS

1. Have yon ever collected tadpoles and kept them in a

glass bowl where you could watch them?
2. Have you seen toads hopping about your garden in
the evening?
3. Why do you see the toads more frequently during the
evening than during the day ?

Toads and frogs feed upon insects, many of

which are very harmful to plants. They do not
cause warts, as you may have heard. Neither do
they come down with the rain. These are stories
ignorant people have made up about them.
Probably the most interesting part of their life
story is the change from the tadpole into the adult
stage. This is almost as great a change as that
which takes place in the caterpillar when it be¬
comes a butterfly. The tadpole, as you probably
know, lives in the water. It has gills by means of
which it is able to take oxygen from the water,
while adult toads and frogs have lungs just as we
have. This makes it possible for them to live
on land.
Frogs and toads lay their eggs in May and
June, depositing them in ponds and streams. As
many as 10,000 or 12,000 eggs can be laid by a
single toad. They are laid in long strings held
together by a jelly-like substance.
32
 TOADS AND FROGS 33

Plfiotogravh by Lynwood M. Chace

A SINGLE FROG SOMETIMES LAYS 10,000 EGGS.

From the eggs come the tadpoles that you prob¬

ably have seen swimming about in shallow
streams. They are more like fish than they are
like adult frogs and toads. They have no legs
or fins, but pass through the water by moving
from side to side. The movement of their long,
thin tails propels them through the water. The
gills have many delicate blood vessels. As the
water passes through the gills, the oxygen of the
water is absorbed by the blood in the small blood
vessels.
A very young tadpole has no mouth. Instead it
has a sucker through which it gives a sticky sub¬
stance that serves to fasten the tadpole to water
34 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Photograph by L. W. Brownell

ABOVE: YOUNG TADPOLES. BELOW (left) : TADPOLE WITH

FRONT AND HIND LEGS; (right) : TADPOLE, TAIL HALF AB¬
SORBED, SOON TO LEAVE THE WATER.

weeds. When it is about ten days old, it grows

a mouth with hard, horny jaws that are useful in
biting off the bits of plants that serve as food.
After a month or more, hind legs begin to grow
out. You will find it very interesting to catch
some tadpoles and keep them in a glass bowl
where you can watch them develop into toads and
frogs. The hind legs have five webbed toes. The
front legs, which develop later, have four toes.
 TOADS AND FROGS 35

Photograph by Lynwood M. Chace

WITH ITS PROTECTIVE COLORING THIS TOAD FEELS MUCH AT

EASE NEAR MUSHROOMS.

These four toes are not webbed. As the legs grow,

the tail becomes smaller and finally disappears.
You may have heard it said that tadpoles eat their
tails, but this is not true. The tails are absorbed
into the rest of the body.
36 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
When the legs have grown and the tail has dis¬
appeared, the creature leaves the water and goes
on land. By this time it is usually about a half¬
inch in length. Sometimes on a rainy day a large
number of tiny frogs or toads will leave the water
together. Perhaps this accounts for the story
that they rain down.
Toads are often seen hopping about just at
dusk in the evening. During the day they lie
hidden near buildings or in shallow holes that
they dig for themselves in the loose soil. Their
color is so nearly like that of the soil that they are
not easily seen. Perhaps you know of other ani¬
mals that blend so well with the things about them
that it is difficult to see them. We say that they
have protective coloring, just as the tiger beetle
has, because the coloring is indeed useful in pro¬
tecting them from their enemies.
It is interesting to watch a toad catch an insect.
It does this by thrusting out its long tongue,
which is covered with a sticky substance that
holds the insect fast. It is not particular about
the kind of insect upon which it feeds, but since
so many of the common insects are harmful, it
will surely destroy many of the enemies of the
garden.
Progs are similar to toads in appearance, as
well as in their life story. Indeed, in the tadpole
stage it is difficult to tell them apart. However,
the frog’s skin is smooth and shiny, while that of
the toad is dry and somewhat warty.
Several kinds of frogs are found in this coun-
 TOADS AND FROGS 37

Photograph by Lynwood M. Chace

FROGS ARE SIMILAR TO TOADS. COMPARE THE FACE OF THIS

ONE WITH THE TOAD IN THE PREVIOUS ILLUSTRATION.

try. Perhaps the most common are the leopard

frog and the bullfrog. The bullfrog is never
found far from the water. It remains a tadpole
for two years, and spends its adult life on the
banks of ponds and streams. The leopard frog,
on the other hand, often wanders some distance
from the water. This is the frog that you prob¬
ably have seen hopping about.
In the winter, toads burrow deep into the
ground, and frogs bury themselves in the mud.
There they remain very quiet during cold weather.
The lungs are empty and the heart barely beats.
When they come out in the spring they are very
hungry, and begin at once to watch for insects.
38 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Photograph by Lynwood If. Chace

THE LEOPARD FROG OFTEN WANDERS SOME DISTANCE FROM
THE WATER.

Tiny frogs and toads are sometimes seen dur¬

ing the day on the trunks and branches of trees.
These are tiny creatures, usually not more than a
half-inch in length, with air sacs on their feet that
help them to climb. You will have to watch very
carefully if you wish to see them on the trees, for
their color blends with the color of the bark. Dur¬
ing the evening they come down and hop about in
search of insects.

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

1. Why are toads and frogs useful?
2. Describe the changes that occur as the tadpole
becomes an adult.
 TOADS AND FROGS 39
3. Explain how the tadpole gets oxygen for use in its
body.
4. "What is meant by protective coloring?
5. How does a toad catch an insect?
6. What kind of frog spends two years in the tadpole
stage of its life?

SOME THINGS TO DO

Study a live frog or toad, either in the classroom or

out-of-doors. Watch it jump, and when you have dis¬
covered just how it does it, imitate it yourself. If you
have a wire cage, put your toad or frog into it, and feed
it some live flies. Watch it catch them.
If possible, catch some tadpoles. Keep them in a glass
bowl and watch them develop into adults.
 CHAPTEE V

THE EARTHWORM GARDENER

1. Have you ever seen earthworms crawling around on

the surface of the earth after a rain?
2. Where do they come from?
3. In what way are earthworms useful ?

You have perhaps thought of earthworms as

good bait for fish. You may be surprised to learn
that they are useful in other ways. They are
most useful to keep the soil in good condition for
growing plants. You will learn about these and
other interesting things as you read through this
chapter.
The earthworm burrows through the soil and
makes passageways for air and water to get down
to the roots of plants, and for surface water
to drain away. When they burrow into hard
earth, they eat the soil, which is changed in their
bodies into powder. This powder mixes with lime
and other valuable plant foods the worm has
eaten from dead plants and animals. You can
readily understand that the earth that passes out
from the earthworm’s body makes valuable soil
for the growing plant. It is rich in plant food
and is so fine that the roots of plants can easily
push their way through it. The gardener himself
could not make the soil better than the earthworm.
40
 THE EARTHWORM GARDENER 41

Photograph by Cornelia Clarice

YOU HAVE NO DOUBT SEEN EARTHWORMS' CRAWLING ABOUT

ON THE SURFACE OF THE GROUND.

You have no doubt seen earthworms crawling

about on the surface of the ground after a rain.
You may have heard them called angleworms,
and perhaps you have heard it said that they come
down with the rain. Earthworms do not come
down with the rain. The truth is that the rain
fills their burrows with water, and they must come
to the surface or drown.
When you spade the moist soil of your garden,
you will probably find earthworms in it. It is
interesting to examine one carefully. Its long-,
thin body is made up of parts that appear on
the surface as rings. Sometimes in a large worm
there are as many as 150 of these rings or parts.
On the underside of the body are small projec¬
tions that are almost like bristles.
Under the skin are two sets of muscles, one of
which goes around the body while the other runs
lengthwise. Watch the earthworm as it crawls.
42 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

NERVE
IT IS INTERESTING TO STUDY AN EARTHWORM CAREFULLY.

The muscles that go around the body (the circular

muscles) shorten, while the other set of muscles
stretch out in the direction in which the earth¬
worm is going, lengthening the hocly. If it goes
forward, it pushes its head forward. Then the
circular muscles stretch, and those running
lengthwise shorten. In this way the body shortens
and increases its thickness, bringing the tail
nearer to the head. By lengthening and shorten¬
ing its body the earthworm moves forward or
backward. The bristle-like projections point in
the opposite direction from that in which the
worm is crawling. You can understand that it is
these projections that make it possible for the
earthworm to stretch its body forward. It can
crawl either backward or forward simply by
changing the direction of the projections on the
under side of its body. This is a slow way to
travel, very different from walking. Using some
molding clay you can show how the earthworm
crawls.
The earthworm has a tiny brain and a nerve
cord that passes along the underside of its body.
 THE EARTHWORM GARDENER 43

A : EARTHWORM SHOWING RINGS; B : EARTHWORM, BURROW,

AND MOUND.

It has no eyes for seeing or ears for hearing.

However, it can feel the difference between light
and darkness, and has a very fine sense of touch.
It has no lungs, but when the skin is moist, oxygen
and carbon dioxide pass in and out of the body
through the skin. You will find it interesting to
learn in detail how oxygen and carbon dioxide are
formed. Oxygen is the gas that is breathed into
the lungs to nourish the blood, while carbon di¬
oxide is the gas that is given off by the lungs and
carries away the blood impurities.
For this reason, the earthworm seeks moist
earth. When the soil near the surface becomes
dry, it burrows down to moisture, eating its way
through the hard earth. At the entrance of its
burrow, small mounds of earth are found. These
are made of the soil that has been swallowed and
44 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
passed out of the earthworm’s body. The earth¬
worm, when tilled with the soil it burrows, crawls
backward and deposits this earth about the en¬
trance of the hole. You may be able to find an
earthworm by learning to recognize the mounds.
In the winter earthworms bury themselves in
the earth below the frozen soil of the surface. In
these underground burrows they roll up into balls
and remain quiet until the ground thaws in the
spring.
Have you ever seen a robin watching for an
earthworm to come to the surface of the earth!
When the worm appears and is captured, it is not
an easy task for the bird to pull it out of the
ground, since the tiny bristle-like projections hold
tightly to the earth. Perhaps you have seen a
robin tugging and pulling to get a worm out of the
burrow.
You may wonder how animals as small as earth¬
worms can do very much good to the soil. Charles
Darwin, a great English scientist, has written
some facts about earthworms that may surprise
you. He wrote that there were more than 50,000
earthworms in each acre of garden soil in Eng¬
land, and that about eighteen tons of soil per
acre passed through the bodies of these 50,000
earthworms every year. Each earthworm helps
a little, therefore a great number of them can do
much good.
 THE EARTHWORM HARDENER 45

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

1. How are earthworms useful in the garden?

2. Why are they often seen on the surface of the
earth after rain?
3. Explain how the earthworm crawls. Of what use
are the bristle-like projections on its body?
4. Where do earthworms spend the winter?

SOME THINGS TO DO

Bring some earthworms to the classroom for observa¬

tion. Keep them in moist earth. Notice their move¬
ments as they crawl, and as they burrow in the earth.
Place dead leaves and grass on the surface of the soil,
and see what the worm does with them.
Look for mounds around the entrances to earthworm
burrows in the garden.
Illustrate the earthworm’s crawling movements, using
molding clay.
 CHAPTER VI

PLANTING BULBS IN AUTUMN

1. Name some flowers that grow from bulbs.

2. What flower bulbs should be planted in the garden in
the fall ?
3. When do tulips, narcissuses, and daffodils bloom?

Would you like to have some early spring

flowers in your garden? You can have them by
planting bulbs in the fall.
You have probably seen tulip, narcissus, or
hyacinth bulbs. They look much like onions. If

CROSS SECTION OF A BULB.

you were to cut one of them through the center

from top to bottom, you would find in the center
a small bud. Surrounding it are thick fleshy
leaves in which food for the young plant is stored.
On the outside are dry, papery layers, that serve
to protect the inner layers of the bulb.
46
 PLANTING BULBS IN AUTUMN 47

You will want your flowers to bloom as early

in the spring as possible. Therefore, select a
sunny place for the bed, where the snow will melt
soonest. About two weeks before planting the
bulbs, the ground should be prepared by digging
or spading the soil about eighteen inches deep,
and if you wish, mix some manure with the earth.
The first of October is a good time to make these
preparations, so that you will be ready to plant
the bulbs by October 15. This will give the bulbs
time to send out roots before the ground freezes
and be ready to grow leaves and flowers in the
spring.
In planting, dig a shallow ditch about four
inches deep. Set your bulbs into it, placing them
a few inches apart, and covering them with the
soil that you have taken from the ditch. In this
way, all the bulbs will be planted at the same
depth. Remember that the roots will grow from
the flat bottoms, and that the stems and leaves will
develop from the pointed tip, therefore, the bulbs
should be set to point straight upward. Other¬
wise, the young plants will be crooked. It is well
to spread straw or manure on the surface of the
bed to protect the bulbs from sudden changes
in temperature during the spring. If you follow
these directions you can have a bed of plants as
fine as those you see in parks and large gardens.
There are a number of kinds of bulbs from
which to choose for fall planting. The blossoms
of the tulip, narcissus, daffodil, and hyacinth are
all so beautiful and so fragrant that you may
48 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Photograph from J. Horace McFarland Co.

THE HYACINTH IS ONE OF THE FAVORITE SPRING FLOWERS.

shake your head in dismay before yon can make

up your mind to choose among them. No doubt
you will feel that you want them all in your gar¬
den. The story of the tulip may help you to
decide.
 PLANTING BULBS IN AUTUMN 49
Many, many years ago the Chinese gave the
people of Persia a few tulip bulbs. The Persians
liked the flower so much that they used it as the
basis for designs in their sewing and weaving.
You can see some of these designs to-day on
Persian cloth and hangings in art museums. The
tulip was later carried to Holland, where the first
bulbs were so highly prized that one of them sold
for more than $1,000. The Dutch people like the
tulip so much that they have made it their national
flower. More tulips are grown in Holland than in
any other country. Until recently almost all of
the tulip bulbs sold in this country were imported
from Holland, but the Dutch bulbs developed a
disease that made it necessary for our govern¬
ment to forbid importing them.
Probably you will want to plant some tulips in
vour bulb bed. The flowers may be yellow, pink,
lavender, red, or of other bright colors. Some of
them are striped, and some are black. What a
lovely spot of color a tulip bed makes in the spring
garden! The flowers have an odor that is a little
like the odor of freshly turned earth in the spring.
The daffodil also has a lovely blossom, as
you may see in the picture here. The flowers are
clear yellow in color, and about three inches
in diameter. The stiff cylinder or tube that you
will notice in the center is about two inches long.
It has a ruffled end like an old-fashioned skirt.
Inside this cylinder you can see the stamens,
which bear the pollen, and the pistils, from which
the seeds develop. The stamens and pistils are
50 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Photograph from J. Horace McFarland Co.

THE DAFFODIL HAS A LOVELY BLOSSOM.

the most important parts of flowers, since the

purpose of the flower is to produce seeds. The
seeds develop in the pistil after the pollen from
the stamens has entered it. With your teacher
 PLANTING BULBS IN AUTUMN 51

you may want to study a daffodil flower to learn

just where the pollen enters the flower and where
it leaves it. This is one of the most important
things in the study of flowers.
Daffodil seeds, however, are not of very much
value. They take little time to grow into plants,
hut the plants will not bloom until they are seven
or eight years old. For this reason daffodils are
usually raised from bulbs. If you will examine a
daffodil bulb that has been in the ground for a
year or more, you may find small bulbs or bulb-
lets growing by its side. From these bulblets
plants will grow, but it takes a long time for these
to blossom. The bulblet must grow for several
years to become a bulb and produce flowers.
Have you seen pictures of narcissuses and hya¬
cinths, the bulbs of which are also suitable for
fall planting in your garden? The narcissus flower
is somewhat similar to that of the daffodil except
that the cylinder in the center is very much
shorter. They may be yellow or white. In some
kinds each flower stem bears several flowers, while
in others only a single flower grows on each stem.
Have you ever been told the mythical story of
the narcissus flower? According to the story, a
beautiful Greek youth who was very selfish, was
punished by Nemesis, the goddess of fortune, to
spend his life wanting to grasp his own shadow
reflected in water. Unable to grasp the shadow,
Narcissus died of grief and became the flower that
bears his name.
Probably you have grown narcissuses or hya-
52 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Photograph from J. Horace McFarland Co.

THE NARCISSUS FLOWER IS SOMEWHAT SIMILAR TO THE
DAFFODIL.

cinths in the house. If you have not, you may

find it interesting to do so. Buy the largest and
the best bulbs, for the smaller ones may he bulb-
lets, and these will not bloom for years. The bulbs
 PLANTING BULBS IN AUTUMN 53

may be planted in bowls of pebbles. Pour in water

until they are almost, but not quite, covered with
it. If they are completely covered with water,
they will rot. Keep the bowl in a cool place until
the green flower buds begin to appear. It will not
be long before you see its fragrant blossom.
After the plant has blossomed, the leaves will
wither and turn yellow, and seeds will often de¬
velop from the flowers. The seeds, however, will
not produce plants that will bloom. Bulbs that
have grown on pebbles will not bear flowers again
the next year, for the plant food that was stored
in them has been used. On the other hand, bulbs
that grow in the garden will bear flowers for
several years, for the roots store new nourish¬
ment in them to replace what was used by the
young plant. The garden bulbs should be dug up
every other year and replanted. By proper care
you may grow fine flowers every year, so fine that
your friends will ask you to show them how you
did it.

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Some of the following sentences are true. Some are

not true. On a piece of paper write the number of each
sentence. If it is true, write Yes beside the number. If
it is false, write No.
1. In the center of a bulb is a tiny bud.
2. Bulbs that are planted in October develop roots
before the ground freezes.
3. The narcissus is the national flower of Holland.
4. Seeds develop in the stamens of flowers.
54 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
5. Bulbs that have grown on pebbles will not bear
flowers again the next year.

SOME THINGS TO DO

Cut a bulb through the center from top to bottom.

Observe the bud, the thick leaves in which the plant
food is stored and the paper-like covering. Draw a pic¬
ture to show these parts.
Select three bulbs that look as nearly alike as possible.
Plant them in three vases, placing one in a warm, light
place; one in a warm, dark place, and another in a cool,
dark place. Compare their growth.
You will find it interesting to plant some bulbs in
your garden, following the instructions given in this
chapter.
Photogravh by L. W. Brownell

CLOVER, GROWING IN OUR GARDENS, IS A WEED.

CHAPTER VII
WEED ENEMIES OF THE GARDEN

1. Name some of the weeds that grow in the gardens of

your neighborhood.
2. Which of these weeds is the most troublesome?
3. Which of the common weeds are most difficult to
kill ? Why ?

A weed is any plant that grows where it is not

wanted. The farmer sows clover in his fields.
There, clover is not a weed, but a crop. The same
plant, growing in our gardens, is a weed.
Purslane is sometimes cultivated for use as
greens to be eaten. All hoys and girls know what
dandelion or spinach greens are. When purslane
grows in gardens where it is not wanted, it is a
troublesome pest. Its thick fleshy leaves and
55
56 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Photograph by L. W. Brownell
PURSLANE. BURDOCK.

stems spread out over the ground, and if allowed

to grow, form a thick mat that interferes with the
growth of garden crops by robbing them of plant
food and water. Its small yellow flowers appear
in the summer and continue to bloom until the
plant is killed by the frost. If the seeds are al¬
lowed to ripen, it is difficult to handle the plant
without scattering them in great numbers. That
is why weeds grow each year without being
planted.
Many of the common weeds produce great num¬
bers of seeds. From the flowers on one stem of
buckthorn about 1,000 seeds grow. Knowing this,
you can readily understand why the buckthorn,
once it starts, is hard to get out of the garden.
Buckthorn plants also grow not only from seeds,
 WEED ENEMIES OF THE HARDEN 57

lmt tliey come up again each season from the roots

that stay in the ground throughout the winter.
To get rid of buckthorn it is necessary to dig out
its roots.
Wild mustard, with its bright yellow flowers, is
common in fields and waste places throughout the
greater part of the United States. One wild mus¬
tard plant has been known to produce 15,000 seeds
in a season. The seeds are very small. Some
older person may be able to find a passage in the
Bible about mustard seed. You can guess that the
farmer who allows the seeds to ripen will soon
have a whole field of wild mustard. In a garden
plot wild-mustard plants should be destroyed be¬
fore they go to seed.
Cinquefoil (sink'foil) is sometimes called five-
fingers because the five leaflets that make up its
divided leaf somewhat resemble the five fingers
of a hand. The plant sends out wire-like runners,
which often are as much as two feet long. Some¬
times they are so thick that you may become
entangled in them. The golden yellow flowers of
this plant appear from May to September.
Cinquefoil should be destroyed before the seeds
ripen.
Have you ever played with the sticking burs of
the burdock? The burdock is a biennial. Bien¬
nials are plants that require two years to complete
their life story. During the first season the bur¬
dock plant grows from seed, developing stems and
leaves but no flowers. The next year the plants
grow from the roots that remain in the ground
58 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Photograph by L. W. Brownell
CINQUEFOIL IS SOMETIMES CALLED FIVE-FINGERS.

through, the winter. During this second season,

burdocks produce flowers and seeds, and thus
complete their life story. The seeds grow inside
the burs, with which you are no doubt familiar.
Burdock roots and leaves are often used in
medicine, but when the plant grows in our gar¬
dens, it becomes a weed. To destroy it during
the first year, you must dig out the roots. If the
tops are cut off without harming the roots, the
plant will grow again. Many weeds can be kept
out of the garden if all roots are dug out when
the garden is prepared in the spring. During
the second year, it is important that these trouble¬
some weeds be taken out before the seed ripens.
The bright pink flowers of the pink knotweed
 WEED ENEMIES OF THE GARDEN 59

Photograph by L. W. Brownell
CHICKWEED HAS TINY WHITE FLOWERS AND SMALL LEAVES.

are commonly seen in gardens, fields, and along

the roadsides from July to October.
The duckweed, with its creeping branches, its
small leaves, and its tiny white flowers, spreads
rapidly when it gets a start in gardens and lawns,
for it produces a large quantity of seeds.
These are but a few of the hundreds of kinds of
weeds that are common in this country. The dam¬
age done by weeds in the United States amounts
each year to many millions of dollars. Many of
the common weeds are very hardy plants that
grow again and again where they are not wanted,
in spite of our efforts to get rid of them. Most of
them produce seeds in large quantities that are
scattered far and wide by the wind, and in other
60 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
wavs. Soil usually has in it many weed seeds that
will grow when the conditions are right.
Weeds are enemies of the garden. Fre¬
quently they grow faster than the garden crops,
robbing them of plant food and water, and if they
are allowed to become taller than the crops, they
will rob them of sunshine as well.
Your garden should he hoed often enough to
keep it clean. The larger weeds should be pulled
out by their roots before hoeing. Hoeing not only
keeps the garden free from weeds, but it also im¬
proves the soil by breaking up lumps and mixing
air with it. The roots of plants need air as well
as water. You should never allow weeds to go to
seed in your garden even after you have har¬
vested your crops. The work of the wise gar¬
dener is not ended in the fall until the garden has
been cleaned of all weeds and plants.
There is also another way in which you can help
to get rid of these troublesome plants that grow
where they are not wanted, and that is by pro¬
tecting the birds that eat the seeds. Especially
during the winter months many of the common
birds feed largely upon weed seeds. You will
learn more about this in another chapter of this
book.

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

1. What are weeds 1

2. Name some plants that are sometimes weeds and
sometimes crops.
 WEED ENEMIES OF THE GARDEN 61

3. Name and describe some of the weeds that grow

in your neighborhood, but which are not described
in this chapter.
4. What is a biennial? Name a common weed that is
a biennial.
5. Give two reasons for hoeing a garden.

SOME THINGS TO DO

Visit a vacant lot to look for purslane, buckthorn,

wild mustard, cinquefoil, burdock, knotweed, and chick-
weed. Find as many (5f those mentioned in the chapter
as you can. Make a list of those you recognize.
Observe the leaves, stems, flowers, fruits, and seeds of
each kind.
Collect one leaf of each different plant and paste it on
a page of your notebook, labeling it with the name of the
plant.
Take a trip to a field to gather weed seeds. Put a
sample of each kind in a small glass bottle. On each
bottle paste a label with the name of the plant from
which,the seed was taken.
Make posters to show how seeds are scattered. Mount
on one cardboard samples of seeds that are carried
by the wind, on another those carried by water, and so
on. Notice that seeds are of a size and shape convenient
for their being scattered.
Give as many reasons as you can for hoeing weeds out
of the garden.
 CHAPTER VIII

FALL GARDEN FLOWERS

1. Name some garden flowers that bloom in the autumn.

2. How many of these have you seen growing ?
3. Did you gather any flower seeds in your garden?

When you know the life stories of plants, you

will find much interest in the autumn garden.
You may notice how the plant prepares for the
coming of more plants next year, and how the
flower helps the coming of other plants.
Are you acquainted with the sweet alyssum
(a-lis'um), often used in the borders of flower
beds ? It has soft green leaves, which fade in the
fall to a yellow brown. It blooms all summer long.
Its small white flowers grow in spikes, which you
see pictured on page 63. All the flowers on one
spike do not bloom at the same time. In fact, you
may sometimes see ripe seeds on the lower part of
the spike while flowers are blooming at the end.
These spikes of sweet alyssum are very interest¬
ing to study in the autumn, when you can see on
one spike all the stages of the growth of seeds
from flowers.
However, you will want to learn more about
the growth of a seed than you can find out by
yourself. Let us consider first the sunflower. Its
large flower head is made up of many simple
flowers from which you can learn something of
62
 FALL GARDEN FLOWERS 63

Photograph from J. Horace McFarland Co.

SWEET ALYSSUM FLOWERS GROW IN SPIKES.

the most important flower parts and their work.

Perhaps the sunflower was named so because its
large yellow flower head looks like the sun. It is
sometimes said that the sunflower always keeps
its head turned toward the sun. If you see one,
64 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Photo graph from J. Horace McFarland Co.

THE SUNFLOWER HEAD HAS MANY LITTLE FLOWERS IN THE
CENTER.

notice whether this is true. Usually the older

flower-head hangs toward the ground because of
its weight.
Look at the picture of the sunflower head.
 FALL GARDEN FLOWERS 65

Around its edge are bright yellow florets, which

are like petals in appearance, and in the center
are many little flowers, each of which is so small
that we would have to use a magnifying glass to
find out very much about it. In the picture you
may be able to see that it looks very much like a
little tube. For this reason it is called a tubular
floret. Each tubular floret has a stamen and a
pistil, which all flowers must have to produce seed.
The stamen bears the pollen, the pistil contains
the part that develops into the seed. The seed
cannot grow, however, unless the pollen from the
stamen fails upon the pistil. From this you can
understand how necessary both stamens and pis¬
tils are in the life of the plant.
The bright yellow florets around the edge of
the sunflower head are called ray florets. They
have neither stamens nor pistils, so they cannot
produce seeds. However, they help a great deal
by attracting insects that feed on nectar, the juice
of flowers. The pollen that falls on the insect
while it is feeding from one flower may drop on
the pistils of another flower.
Have you ever seen a sunflower head after the
seeds have developed? What we call the seed is
really a hard dry fruit with a seed inside. Fruits
that have hard dry coverings of this kind are
called akenes (a-kens). The sunflower akenes de¬
velop in little sockets in the flower head in which
they are held firmly until they ripen. As the
flower head shakes in the wind, the ripe seeds are
loosened from their sockets and are scattered on
66 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
the ground. Some of them are eaten by the birds.
Only a few develop into plants.
Sunflower seeds are sometimes fed to chickens.
In some parts of the West where corn cannot
be grown, sunflowers are raised in the fields to
feed the cattle.
The common sunflower is an annual. An annual
is a plant that must be grown from the seed each
year. The seeds that are planted in the spring
develop into plants that blossom and produce new
seeds before they die in the autumn. There are
also perennial sunflowers, but these are not so
common as the annuals. Perennials do not com¬
plete their life stories in a single year. Their
roots live in the ground through the winter, and
in the spring send up new stems and leaves.
Would you call a chrysanthemum an annual or a
perennial plant?
The bright orange and yellow flowers of the
calendula add a touch of beauty to the autumn
garden. They have a spicy odor, too, that blends
well with the odor of dry leaves and wood smoke
and apples. The calendula begins to bloom in the
summer, and if the flowers are cut, it will con¬
tinue to blossom until late in the fall.
Like the sunflower, it has a flower head that is
made up of tube-like florets in the center with ray
florets around the edge. However, the calendula
is quite different from the sunflower in its pro¬
duction of seeds in that they are grown around
the edges of the flower. You recall that the sun¬
flower seeds grew inside of its collar of yellow
 FALL GARDEN FLOWERS 67

Photograph from J. Horace McFarland Co.

THE CALENDULA HAS ORANGE AND YELLOW FLOWERS.

pennants. If the flowers are allowed to stay on

the plant until the seeds ripen and fall to the
ground, some of the seeds will no doubt grow in
the spring. Thus, the calendula bed will con¬
tinue from year to year, but the new plants will
68 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

YOU MAY ALSO HAVE GROWN DAHLIAS IN YOUR FLOWER

GARDEN.

grow each season from seeds, and not from the

old roots, for the calendula is an annual.
No doubt you can think of a number of other
autumn garden flowers that are made up of many
small flowers. Perhaps you are acquainted with
the aster, which grows in clumps with white, pink,
or lavender blossoms. The name aster means
star-like. Do yon consider it a good name for the
plant? You may also have grown coreopsis,
dahlias, chrysanthemums, or cosmos in your
garden. The flower heads of all these plants
have many smaller flowers together. You will find
 FALL GARDEN FLOWERS 69
it interesting to examine them to see whether yon
can find the stamens and the pistils, and the grow¬
ing seeds.

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Fill in the word or words to complete these sentences

correctly.
1. A flower must have a.and a.in order
to grow.
2. The tiny flowers that make up a compound flower
head are known as florets. Those in the center of
the head are.florets; those around the edge
are.florets.
3. The seeds of the sunflower develop from the
.florets.
4. The seeds of the calendula develop from the
.florets.

SOME THINGS TO DO

Make a trip to a garden where some of the fall flowers

are blooming, and learn to know as many of them as
you can. Notice, in as many plants as possible, how seeds
look as they grow. Gather some seeds to plant next
year, and some to feed to the winter birds.
If possible, bring a sunflower head to school and no¬
tice as many of the things that you have learned in this
chapter as you can. If you cannot find a sunflower, you
can bring some other flower head with florets.
If you have a magnifying glass you will find it in¬
teresting to study the florets under it. Find the ray-
florets. Do any of the ray-florets produce seeds? In
what part of the sunflower do the seeds develop ?
70 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
Pull all the ray-florets off one flower head. Do you
like it better with the ray-florets or without them?
Try to find the stamens and the pistils. Do you find
them in the ray-florets or in the tubular florets?
 CHAPTER IX

THE CHRYSANTHEMUM, THE LAST FLOWER OF THE

AUTUMN

1. Have you ever seen chrysanthemums in the window

of a florist shop?
2. Have you seen chrysanthemums blooming in the
garden ?
3. How are the out-of-door flowers different from the
ones in the flower shop ?

On cold, frosty autumn days when all the other

flowers have faded, you will find chrysanthemums
still blooming in the garden. In the northern
states these hardy flowers appear as late as No¬
vember, while in the South they frequently bloom
until Christmas.
The chrysanthemum has an interesting story.
More than two thousand years ago, these flowers
grew in China and Japan. From there they were
carried to Europe, and about the time George
Washington became president of the United
States, a French gardener introduced them into
England. Probably chrysanthemums in those
days were always yellow, for the name means
“gold flower.”
As you probably know, all chrysanthemums are
not golden in color now. They may be white, pink,
orange, or maroon. Indeed, there are more than
400 varieties of chrysanthemums, some of which
71
72 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Photograph from J. Horace McFarland Co.

THE OUT-OF-DOOR CHRYSANTHEMUM RESEMBLES THE ASTER
IN SHAPE.

grow in hothouses while others are among the

hardiest of our garden plants. The leaves and
stems of these many varieties are more alike than
 THE CHRYSANTHEMUM 73

BY PINCHING OFF ALL THE BUDS EXCEPT ONE A SINGLE

LARGE BLOOM CAN BE OBTAINED.

the flowers are. You may recall their fresh, spicy

odor or remember their somewhat sticky surfaces.
The dull green leaves are long with edges that
are cut in irregular shapes like scallops on girls’
dresses.
The flowers of the out-of-door varieties resem¬
ble asters in shape. They are small pompons that
vary in size from one inch to four inches in diam¬
eter. They grow in graceful clusters. The ray
florets usually lie flat like those of the calendula,
but they are finer and less stiff. Their odor is
clean and refreshing.
The flower heads of the hothouse varieties are
74 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Photograph from J. Horace McFarland Co.

THE HOTHOUSE CHRYSANTHEMUM HAS LARGE COMPACT

FLOWER HEADS.

much larger and more compact than are those that

grow in the garden. In the greenhouse all except
a single one of the flower heads on a plant are
pinched off, and the strength of the whole plant
goes into producing one gorgeous bloom, which is
 THE CHRYSANTHEMUM 75

frequently from six to eight inches in diameter.

Usually the ray flowers are long and curl toward
the center, giving the head the appearance of a
great colored ball on the end of a stick. You will
no doubt recall that the hothouse chrysanthemum
blooms at the end of a long stem.
If the flowers are allowed to remain on the
plant, seeds will develop, but they are of little
value to us, for only an expert gardener can suc¬
ceed in raising chrysanthemums from seeds.
There are much easier ways of starting the plants
in greenhouses or gardens.
The common varieties of chrysanthemums are
perennials. Their roots live in the ground
throughout the winter, sending up new stems and
leaves in the spring. The roots increase in size,
spreading out farther and farther under the
ground each season, and sending up more new
shoots each spring.
By digging up a portion of the roots and plant¬
ing them in a new place, a bed of chrysanthemums
may be started. Sometimes, however, the plants
are started by cutting off a part of the stem and
placing it in the ground. These cuttings may be
the short, stout shoots that spring up from the
roots, or they may be pieces of the plant stem. If
a shoot is to be used, it should be cut off near the
rootstock from which it grows, either just at the
surface of the ground or a little below. To make
a stem cutting, the stem is cut straight across with
a sharp knife just below a joint. It is well to
remove the lower leaves. Either shoots or stem
76 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Photograph from J. Horace McFarland Co.

CUTTINGS MAY BE SHORT, STOUT SHOOTS.

cuttings are usually about two and one-half inches

long.
Let us take an imaginary trip to the greenhouse
to find out how new plants are raised from cut¬
tings. Sometime in January we may find the
flower growers preparing a large shallow box in
a corner where the temperature will stay about
50°. How does this temperature compare with
that of your schoolroom?
Into the box the workmen put first a layer of
loam and leaf mold, and on top of this, a layer of
sand or gravel. The cuttings are then placed up¬
right in the sand, which is packed tightly about
the stems. Usually they are so placed that about
one-third of their length is below the surface.
The layer of sand in the box should be just thick
 THE CHRYSANTHEMUM 77

THE GARDENER PLANTS THE CUTTING IN THE SAND.

enough so that the cutting will reach almost, but

not quite, down to the loam. The gardener plants
the cutting in the sand because loam often con¬
tains fungi that attack the soft cutting and cause
it to rot before it starts to grow. By planting the
cutting in the sand it is given a good start and as
the roots grow they can push their way into the
layer of loam and leaf mold where there is more
plant food.
If we were to return to the same greenhouse
later in January, we would see the workmen mov¬
ing the chrysanthemum shoots or cuttings, which
have grown into plants with roots, into separate
small pots. Perhaps you can grow some chrysan¬
themum plants from cuttings if you have a cool,
evenly heated cellar with good light.
Like other plants, the chrysanthemum has
enemies. One of these is the black aphis, a tiny
soft-bodied insect that feeds upon the sticky sub¬
stance covering the stems and leaves of plants.
78 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
This insect can be killed by spraying the plant
with liquid poison or dusting it with powders that
you can buy for this purpose.
Because it is so beautiful at a time of the year
when few flowers are blooming, and because it
thrives in a great variety of soils, the chrysan¬
themum now blooms in many countries, but per¬
haps it is best beloved in Japan, one of its first
homes. The Japanese have made it their national
flower, and they celebrate Chrysanthemum Day
each September as one of their gayest holidays.

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

1. Chrysanthemums are usually raised from the roots

or from cuttings. Tell how you would start a
chrysanthemum hed from the roots.
2. What are cuttings? What two kinds of chrysan¬
themum cuttings are used to start new plants ?
3. Explain the process of growing plants from cut¬
tings in the greenhouse.
4. Do you know of any other plants that will grow
from cuttings? If so, name them.
5. Name an insect enemy of the chrysanthemum, and
tell how it harms the plant. How can we protect
our chrysanthemums from these enemies?

SOME THINGS TO DO

You will find it interesting to observe for yourself

many of the facts that are stated in this chapter.
No doubt you will be able to find chrysanthemums
blooming in near-by gardens. Observe them carefully
and compare them with the hothouse varieties.
 THE CHRYSANTHEMUM 79
Perhaps yon can plan to visit a greenhouse when new
chrysanthemum plants are being started from cuttings,
or you may plan to start a chrysanthemum bed in your
own garden next spring. If you do this by transplant¬
ing some roots from the grown-up plants, it should be
done in the early spring before the first green shoots
appear. If you use the shoots instead, cut them when
they are about two and one-half inches tall. Stem cut¬
tings may be made at about the same time or later.
 CHAPTER X

OUR FOREST TREES

1. Name as many trees that grow in the forest as you

can.
2. Have you ever seen the blossoms of the white oak
tree ?
3. Why does a tree growing in the forest yield better
lumber than one of the same species growing by it¬
self in the field?

Have you ever pictured to yourself what your

backyard must have looked like a hundred years
or more ago ? Many sections of this country were
covered with forests then. Perhaps your yard
may have been a part of a great forest where
oaks, maples, pines, hemlocks, or other trees grew
so close together that you could look up the
straight trunks perhaps 100 feet before the trees
began to branch. There at the tops were the
leaves spreading out in the sunlight and looking
like a great green tent. Birds and animals made
their homes in the forest; flowers and berries grew
in the deep black soil or humus, formed from the
decaying leaves of the trees.
How did that beautiful forest disappear?
Settlers came with their families. They cut trees
to make their cabins and to use as fuel to keep
them warm. They cut still more trees to clear
the land for raising grain. No one in those days
80
 OUR FOREST TREES 81
thought very much about the value of the great
trees, because there were so many of them. The
early pioneers in this country probably thought
there were enough forests to serve for all time.
There were once about 822,000,000 acres of for¬
ested land in this country. To-day there are but
38,000,000 acres of the original forests left and
250,000,000 acres of second growth. By using
vour arithmetic a little you can learn that nineteen
out of twenty acres of forest have been cut down.
People have begun to help to protect the re¬
maining forests because now they know of what
great value they are. A great deal could be
written on this subject, as well as upon the value
of trees, but the purpose of this chapter is only
to acquaint you with two groups of very im¬
portant forest trees, the oaks and the pines.
In the forest the oaks often grow to a great
height without branches. Their beautiful, hard
wood is used for furniture, and for floors and
woodwork in houses. Wherever there have been
branches in the trunk of a tree, knots appear in
the lumber that is made from it. Prom a straight
trunk without branches lumber without knots can
be made. You will be interested to see the differ¬
ence in shape between trees that grow in the
forest and others of the same kind growing apart
from other trees. You will find that forest trees
do not branch out like trees of the same kind
growing out by themselves. When trees grow
close together, as they are in the forests, they
cannot branch out, therefore, they grow upwards.
82 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Photograph by L. W. Brownell Courtesy of TJ. S. Forest Service

A WHITE PINE GROWING A WHITE PINE FOREST.

ALONE.

You will be interested, also, when making a trip to

the woods, to observe trees of different ages and
notice whether the lower branches never begin to
grow at all, or whether they get a start but do not
grow and die off as the tree pushes upward toward
the light.
There are many kinds of oaks. Look at the
pictures of the two kinds of oak leaves that you
see here. One is from a white oak tree, and the
other is from a black oak. You mil notice that
they are somewhat alike in shape. However, the
leaves of the white oaks and the black oaks are
not alike. The white oak leaf is rounded at the
Photograph by L. W. Brownell
ABOVE : WHITE-OAK LEAF. BELOW : BLACK-OAK LEAF.
84 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Photograph by L. W. Brownell

WHITE-OAK FLOWERS. BLACK-OAK FLOWERS.

end, and its lobes are rounded, while the lobes of

the black oak leaf are pointed. The leaves of the
black oak tree sometimes reach a length of ten
inches. They are slightly larger than white oak
leaves, which are seldom more than nine inches
long. When full grown, oak leaves are dark
green, thick, and leathery. In the autumn the
leaves of the black oak turn to a brownish yellow
or dark red before they fall, and the white oak
leaves take on a bright red color.
The flowers of the oaks appear in the spring
after the leaves have started to grow. They look
like tassels hanging from the twigs. Such flowers
are called catkins. There are two kinds of flowers
on each tree, one of which bears the stamens
 OUR FOREST TREES 85

Photograph by L. W. Brownell
WHITE-OAK FRUIT. BLACK-OAK FRUIT.

and the other bears the pistils from which the

seeds grow. You recall that the pistils and
stamens of most flowers grow together in the same
flower. The pistils, however, cannot produce seeds
unless the pollen from the stamens is carried to
them. On the white oak tree the catkins that bear
the stamens are yellow, while the seed-producing
flowers are red. How do you think the pollen is
carried from the stamens to the pistils?
The fruits or acorns of the white oak grow and
ripen in a single season. Those of the black oak
require two years to become full grown. Black
oak trees bloom every spring, hut the acorns do
not mature until the second autumn. Many acorns
are eaten by squirrels and other animals, but
some of them become buried in the soil or under
fallen leaves and develop into young oak trees.
86 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Photograph by L. IF. Brownell

WHITE-OAK TRUNK. BLACK-OAK TRUNK.

As a rule the oaks grow slowly and live for

many years. Many oak trees do not reach their
full size until they are 100 years old. Some kinds
do not produce seeds until they have lived for
twenty years. There are some beautiful full-
grown oak trees in many parts of this country.
People prize them highly.
Both the white and the black oak get their
names from the color of the bark. The white
oak has an ashy gray hark that comes off when
you rub your hand over it. Black oak bark is
black on the outside with a yellow tint under¬
neath. The inner hark of the black oak yields
tannin, which is used in the tanning of leather.
 OUR FOREST TREES 87

You can now guess from where the word tanning’

comes.
Perhaps you know the names of some other
kinds of oaks. The post, bur, rock chestnut, yel¬
low, and swamp white oaks belong to the same
group as the white oak, having leaves with rounded
lobes and bearing acorns that mature in one sea¬
son. The kind that belong to the black oak group
are the red, scarlet, Spanish, pin, Georgia, Texas,
California black, and the blackjack oaks. These
trees have leaves with pointed lobes, and their
acorns require two seasons to grow and ripen.
Among the evergreen forest trees the white
pine is perhaps the most beautiful. It sometimes
reaches a height of more than 100 feet, with a
straight trunk, three or four feet in thickness. A
white pine that grows in the open may have many
spreading branches, but in the forest, surrounded
by other trees, its trunk does not branch for a
considerable distance. In this way the leaves are
at the top only, and reach the light above other
trees.
Look at the picture of the needles or leaves of
the white pine. They are three to five inches
long, and grow in clusters of five. Perhaps you
think that an evergreen tree does not shed its
leaves, but a walk in a pine forest would convince
you that it does, for the ground is covered with
needles. However, the leaves that come out in
the spring do not fall the following autumn. They
remain on the tree for two seasons, dropping off
in the autumn of the second season. Since new
Photograph by L. W. Brownell

WHITE PINE NEEDLES AND CONES.

 OUR FOREST TREES 89
leaves appear every spring, you can understand
that the pine tree will always have some needles
in the winter, but it will not have as many as it
has in the autumn.
In June, strange-looking flowers appear on the
white pine tree. They are tiny cones, so small
that they are not often noticed. There are two
kinds, one of which bears the pollen, and then
drops off the tree. The other kind of cone, which
develops into the fruit of the tree, grows until it
reaches a length of five to ten inches. It bears
the brown-winged seeds. Look at the pictures of
the white pine fruit. The wings on the seed, which
are nearly an inch long, are a great advantage,
since they make it possible for the wind to carry
the seeds some distance. Many of them fall on
places where there is more room for the young
trees to develop than there would have been right
at the base of the mother tree.
There are several kinds of pine trees in this
country. The white pine grows principally in the
forests of the northeast. The Georgia or yellow
pine is found in the southern states. The sugar
pine grows in the Rocky Mountains. These are
but a few of the valuable evergreen trees found
in the forests of this country. You will learn
more about the evergreens in another chapter of
this book.
90 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Fill in the word or words to complete these sentences
correctly.
1. There were once about . acres of forested
land in this country. There are now only.
acres of the original forests left, and.acres
of second growth.
2. Oak wood is used for., and for. and
.in houses.
3. White oak leaves have . lobes; black oak
leaves have.lobes.
4. The.of the oak are catkins.
5. Acorns develop from the flowers that bear the

6. The acorns of the black oak require .years

to mature.
7. New leaves appear on the white pine each
., and remain on the tree until a year from
the following.
8. Pine leaves are called. On the white pine
tree they grow in clusters of .
9. The seeds of the white pine tree have., which
are nearly an inch long.
10. The white pine is found chiefly in the forests of
the.part of the United States.

SOME THINGS TO DO

Take a trip to the woods to study the forest trees of

your neighborhood. Compare the shapes of the various
trees with those of the same kind growing in uncrowded
places.
If you find oak trees, observe the leaves and the acorns
to see whether they belong to the white or the black oak
 OUR FOREST TREES 91
group. If you have a tree guide, you may be able to
find out the names of the different kinds.
If you find any pine trees, study them also, observing
the shape of the tree, the leaves, the cones, and the seed.
Use a tree guide, if you have one, to discover the names
of the different kinds.
List the names of other trees, with drawings or short
descriptions of leaves, fruits, seeds, bark, shape of the
tree, or any other information that will help you in
knowing them.
 CHAPTER XI

NEIGHBORHOOD SHADE TREES

1. What shade trees grow in your neighborhood?

2. Which of them do you like best? Why?
3. Which of them grow most rapidly?

If you live in a section of the country that was

once forested, some of the shade trees in your
neighborhood are no doubt very old. A number
of them may have started in the forest as young
seedlings that were left standing when the land
was cleared for farming.
On the western plains where the land was not
forested, the early settlers planted trees about
their homes for shade and for protection against
the wind. Usually those trees were selected for
first planting in treeless sections that would grow
rapidly. Many cottonwoods and ash-leaved ma¬
ples, which were called box elders, were planted,
since they grow very rapidly and they flourish in
dry sections where other trees do not live.
Perhaps you know the cottonwood under an¬
other name. It is frequently called the Carolina
poplar. It is often chosen for planting in newly
developed sections of a city, because it grows rap¬
idly and grows well in dusty, smoky air where
many other trees do not. Its glossy leaves throw
off the smoke and dirt. Like other poplars, its
92
Photograph by L. W. Brownell
THE COTTONWOOD IS FREQUENTLY CALLED THE CAROLINA
POPLAR.
94 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
leaves tremble in the breeze when no other tree
leaves can be seen to move. This is because the
leaves are thick and hang on slender stems. They
are glossy green above and pale dull green under¬
neath, which gives them the appearance of twin¬
kling as they are shaken by the breeze. In the
autumn, the leaves turn yellow.
In choosing trees for planting, you must con¬
sider in what kind of soil and climate the tree can
grow best. You must consider also whether the
tree is able to withstand heat and cold, and if you
live in the northern states, whether the branches
will break under the weight of snow and ice.
Whether the tree grows rapidly or slowly, is
another important thing to consider. Some
trees grow rapidly, but have soft wood that
breaks easily. Carolina poplars, box elders, and
silver maples grow very rapidly and they are able
to withstand the hardships of city life, but they
do not live long.
In treeless sections, whether in city or country,
quick growing trees are certainly desirable, but
it is wise to plant at the same time some of the
longer-lived trees that grow more slowly. They
will probably be large enough to give good shade
by the time the rapid growers have died away.
You have already studied the oaks. They are
among our most valuable forest trees. Red oaks
and pin oaks are frequently planted for shade.
Both of them belong to the black oak group, hav¬
ing leaves with pointed lobes and acorns that
require two years to mature. Oaks are very
 NEIGHBORHOOD SHADE TREES 95

sturdy. They have spreading roots that hold

them firmly in place while trees near them are
bent and broken by storms. In the autumn oak
leaves turn a deep scarlet, and some of them hang
on the tree throughout the winter.
Several of the maples make fine shade trees.
In twenty years sugar maples that are given
proper care are large enough to be very useful
for shade. Their foliage is very thick, for they
have many small leaf-bearing branches. In the
summer the leaves are glossy dark green above
and a pale green underneath. Yellow, orange,
crimson, and scarlet foliage decorates the maple
trees in autumn. The shape of maple seeds helps
them to be whirled by the wind.
Several other kinds of maples are also used for
shade. You may know the silver and the red
maples, which are native to this country, or the
Norway and the sycamore maples, which were
brought over from Europe. The cut-leaf silver
maple was first imported from Japan, and is now
used considerably for planting in parks and yards.
Elms are excellent shade trees, for they grow
rapidly and often live for centuries. They are
beautiful trees. Study the shape of the one in
the picture. Notice that the branches shooting
upwards may remind you of a spray of water.
Sometimes the elm is described as vase-shaped or
fountain-shaped. In the spring reddish green
flowers appear on the branches before the leaf
buds open. It is interesting to watch the elm
photograph by L. W. Brownell

THE SYCAMORE MAPLES WERE BROUGHT OVER FROM EUROPE,

 NEIGHBORHOOD SHADE TREES 97

Photograph by L. W. Brownell
ELMS ARE EXCELLENT SHADE TREES,

leaves come out. When they first leave the buds,

they are folded like tiny fans.
The ginkgo is an ornamental tree native to
China and Japan. It was carried from those
countries into England, and from there to Amer¬
ica Although it is related to the pines and
spruces, it is not an evergreen tree. It grows
even in poor soil; it stands the heat well, and re¬
mains free from insects and disease. The pollen¬
hearing and seed-bearing flowers grow on differ¬
ent trees. A tree with pollen-bearing flowers is
better for planting, for the fruit of the seed-bear¬
ing trees has an unpleasant odor. Which tree
grows the stamens and which the pistils?
The ailanthus, or Tree of Heaven, which also
came from China, is another tree that can grow
Photograph from J. Horace McFarland Co.
THE GINKGO IS AN ORNAMENTAL TREE,
 NEIGHBORHOOD SHADE TREES 99

Photograph by L. W. Brownell
THE AILANTHUS IS ALSO CALLED THE TREE OF HEAVEN.

in dusty, smoky sections of the city. Its leaves

are very large, sometimes reaching a length of
three feet. It has winged seeds that are carried
100 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

by the wind. Do you know of any other -winged

seeds?
We could not even begin in one chapter to tell
you about all the trees that might be planted for
shade. The ones in which you will be most inter¬
ested are those that grow in your own neighbor¬
hood, and you can find out about those by studying
the trees themselves. You may need a tree guide
to help you to recognize the different kinds.
If you wish to plant a tree, it will probably be
best for you to choose the kind that grows well
in your own community. You may be able to
go out into the woods and dig up a sapling. It
will not be difficult to select a small one growing
so close to other trees that it would never have
a chance to develop where it is.
In transplanting the sapling, you must take care
to injure the roots of the young tree as little as
possible. Remember that the roots often spread
for a considerable distance in all directions below
the surface of the ground, so take up plenty of
soil with the tree. Perhaps you have seen trees
sent out from a nursery for transplanting. Their
roots are covered with wet burlap to keep them
from getting dry and bruised. It is a good plan
to protect the roots of the young sapling in the
same way.
The best season for transplanting trees varies
in different sections of the country, but it always
occurs after the leaves fall in the autumn and
before the leaf buds come out in the spring*. Ask
a nurseryman in your neighborhood or someone
 NEIGHBORHOOD SHADE TREES 101

who has planted many trees, about this. In some

localities you will find some difference of opinion
as to whether it is best to plant in the spring or
in the fall. Many trees are transplanted when the
ground is frozen. Can you tell why?

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

1. Select a kind of tree that you think is particularly

good for shade in your neighborhood. Give as
many reasons as you can for your selection.
2. Describe the trees of the species that you have
selected. Make your description accurate enough
so that any one in the class may know them.
3. Name the different kinds of trees that might be
selected for shade to plant near your home. Tell
where to find these trees.
4. When should trees be planted in your section of
the country? Does the time vary for different
kinds of trees? Explain why the time that you
have mentioned is the best season.

SOME THINGS TO DO

Study the trees of your neighborhood. If possible,

learn to know the different kinds of trees by their
shapes, as well as by the bark, leaves, flowers, and seeds.
Make drawings in your notebook of leaves, seeds, and
bark of each kind of tree, as you learn to know it.
Begin in the autumn a collection of leaves, fruit, and
seeds of trees in your neighborhood. In the spring com¬
plete the collection by adding the flowers. This collec¬
tion may be placed in the school museum when complete.
Photograph by Cornelia Clarke

THE CARDINAL IS OF A BRIGHT RED COLOR.

CHAPTER XII

SEED-EATING BIRDS

1. Have you ever seen a cardinal?

2. Do you know where birds get their food in winter?
3. What kind of bills do the seed-eating birds have ?

Almost all of the common birds are useful.

Some of them feed upon harmful insects.
Some eat the seeds of weeds. In this chapter you
will learn about a few of the most common birds.
The cardinal is a permanent resident through¬
out the Eastern part of our country. Permanent
residents are birds that spend the whole year in
one community, not going southward in the au¬
tumn as many kinds do. You can recognize the
male cardinal by his bright red color, and by the
102
 SEED-EATING BIBDS 103
crest that looks like a cap on his head. The
female is olive brown, with crest, wings, and tail
of dull red. The male birds of all kinds are gen¬
erally more beautiful than the females. In size
the cardinal is a little smaller than the robin.
Cardinals spend much of the time among* the
smaller shrubs and bushes, and in spite of their
bright colors, they are not easily seen. Their
nests are built in low evergreens, bushes, or vines,
not more than four feet from the ground. They
are made of twigs, grass, and weeds, and are lined
with bits of grass and tiny roots.
The cardinal feeds largely upon seeds, although
it eats some insects also. Like many other seed¬
eating birds, it has a large beak with which it can
take the seeds from their husks, and can even
crack some of them. To be sure, the cardinal eats
some wheat, oats, and other grain, but it pays
well for this food by destroying large quantities
of weed seeds and insect pests. In the summer
large numbers of insects that attack the cot¬
ton plant, as well as potato beetles, grasshoppers
and flies are devoured by cardinals. In the winter
the grain having been harvested, many of the
insects disappear. During this time these useful
birds feed on the seeds of weeds. When the food
is scarce, they will sometimes come and eat from
a food, shelf which has been placed outside the
window.
Very early in the spring, before the bluebirds
or the robins return, you may hear the cheery
sound of the song sparrow. It nests from Vir-
 104 ELEMENTAEY SCIENCE

Photograph by Cornelia Clarke

WHEN FOOD IS SCARCE, BIRDS COME AND EAT' FROM A FOOD

SHELF.

ginia and Missouri north as far as Canada, and

spends its winters from Illinois and Massachu¬
setts south as far as the Gulf of Mexico.
It resembles other members of the sparrow
family, but you can know it by the dark spot in
the center of its grayish breast. It is about the
size of the English sparrow, but its body looks
more slender. Its back and head are brown with
gray streaks.
The song sparrow is usually found in the alders
and bushes that grow along the banks of brooks
 SEED-EATING BIRDS 105

Photograph by L. W. Brownell
SONG-SPARROWS ARE GOOD INSECT CATCHERS'.

and ponds and in the shrubbery of lawns and

gardens. When it is frightened, it is apt to fly
into the low bushes, instead of flying high in the
air or taking refuge in trees.
Its nest is made of grasses and weeds lined with
hair, or fine grass, and is placed on the ground
or in a low bush. Do you think you could weave
a nest as well as the sparrow can? Four or five
spotted eggs are laid in April, hatching about ten
to fourteen days later. When the young ones have
learned to fly, the parent birds raise another
family. Three or four broods are raised each
season, and a new nest is usually built for each
family.
During the summer, song sparrows feed upon
106 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
aphids, caterpillars, cutworms, grasshoppers, and
flies. In the winter they eat large quantities of
weed seed. They are friends of the gardener and
the farmer, and they should he protected. Per¬
haps their greatest enemy is the cat. Boys and
girls can help in the protection of song sparrows
by keeping stray cats away from their nesting
places. You may wonder how a cat can catch a
bird. Watch one sometime and you will see how
cunning the cat is.
The goldfinch is usually found in orchards,
shade trees, and gardens. During the summer
months the male is a bright yellow bird, with
black cap and wings. The female is a dull olive
color all the year round, and during the winter,
the male becomes this color also.
The goldfinch builds a nest of fine grasses and
bits of other plants, sometimes using lichens for
the outside, and places it in hushes and trees from
five to thirty feet from the ground. The nest is
lined with thistledown, and in this fluffy bed,
from three to six bluish eggs are laid. The fe¬
male bird builds the nest while her mate sings to
her. Then while she sits upon the eggs, the male
brings food to her, and later helps to feed the
young. Not all male birds are as helpful to their
mates as the goldfinch is.
The goldfinch has the thick hill that is common
among seed-eating birds and which is very useful
in grinding seeds as well as in getting them out of
their husks. Sometimes the goldfinch is called a
thistle bird, because it is so frequently seen feed-
Courtesy of TJ. S. Biological Survey
THE GOLDFINCH AND ITS MATE ARE FRIENDS OF THE
FARMER AND GARDENER.
108 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

ing upon the seeds of the thistle, which you will

no doubt recall is a troublesome weed. You may
also have heard the goldfinch called a wild canary,
a yellow bird, or a lettuce bird. All of these
names are common in different localities.
During the winter months the goldfinch feeds
almost entirely on weed seeds, but in the summer
it eats insects as well.
These are but a few of the many species of
birds that befriend the farmer and the gardener.
The majority of our winter birds are seed eaters.
Juncos and tree sparrows may often be seen in
waste places where weeds have flourished, de¬
vouring quantities of seeds. The bobwhite eats
the seeds of ragweed and pigweed in large quan¬
tities. You have learned how weeds spring up in
fields and gardens robbing the crops of food and
water. It would be difficult to guess the value of
seed-eating birds in controlling these troublesome
plants.
Although these useful birds are very well
adapted to care for themselves, in the winter when
the ground is covered with snow, they welcome
your help in securing food. Seeds or crumbs of
bread placed on a feeding shelf or scattered on
the ground will be eagerly picked up by hungry
birds. Bits of suet tied to the limbs of trees will
attract those that feed upon insects. In the
winter many school classes have a good time feed¬
ing birds. Children learn to know many birds this
way.
 SEED-EATING BIRDS 109

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Fill in the word or words to complete these sentences

correctly.
1. A.resident is a bird that does not migrate.
2. The male cardinal is bright.in color.
3. The female cardinal is.in color.
4. Cardinals, song sparrows, and goldfinches feed
largely upon . during the winter
months. In the summer they eat.as well.
5. You can tell the song sparrow from other members
of its family by the . spot in the center of
his.breast.
6. During the summer months the male goldfinch is
bright.in color.

SOME THINGS TO DO

Make a trip to places where weeds have gone to seed

to find out what birds in your neighborhood feed upon
weed seed. You may need a bird guide to help you to
know them. Make a list of these birds, with short de¬
scriptions.
Make a simple food shelf or tray, and hang it in a
near-by tree where you can watch your bird visitors.
It is well to make the shelf with a raised edge about the
margin so that the food will not blow away, and to place
the shelf where one side, at least, is sheltered. Ever¬
green branches are often used for protection.
Keep your feeding shelf well stocked with seeds or
crumbs of bread, and you will enjoy watching the birds
that visit it. With the aid of a bird guide, identify the
different kinds.
 CHAPTER XIII

HOW WE CAN HELP THE BIRDS

1. Name some of the common birds of your neighbor¬

hood that feed upon insects.
2. Which of these birds are permanent residents?
3. Have you ever fed the birds that stay in your neigh¬
borhood through the winter ?

You have just read about some birds that are

useful because they eat weed seeds. There are
others that feed upon insect pests. These pos¬
sibly are the meat eaters.
You may have heard the downy Avoodpecker’s
drumming on the trunk or the limb of a tree or
on a house. It may he drilling a hole in which to
place a nest, or it may be hunting for food, for
the woodpecker feeds largely upon worms that it
finds buried in the bark and wood of trees.
Many farmers and fruit growers are inclined to
suspect these birds of injuring their trees, but the
truth is that they destroy insect pests, therefore,
are of great value. They usually select dead limbs
and trunks for their nesting places. The hole-
drilling that they do in their search for food is in
trees in which harmful wood-boring insects are
working. The woodpecker could do nothing better
to the tree than to dig out and destroy insect pests
that have buried themselves in its wood. You
no
Photograph by Cornelia Clarke
THE DOWNY WOODPECKER OFTEN SELECTS DEAD LIMBS AND
TRUNKS FOR ITS NESTING PLACE.
 112 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
can easily imagine tlie damage that these insects
do to the wood. If you notice a fallen tree yon
may find many small worm holes in its trunk and
branches.

The Downy Woodpecker

The downy woodpecker is found throughout the

greater part of the United States. Like many of
the woodpeckers, it has a scarlet patch upon its
head, but it can be distinguished from other mem¬
bers of its family by its small size. It seldom
grows larger than seven inches in length, while
the hairy woodpecker, which it resembles most
closely, is usually about nine inches long.
The sharp beak of the downy woodpecker serves
as a kind of chisel to cut or drill the wood, while
its long tongue, which has a little row of hooks
along each side, is very useful to reach the holes
and pull out the insects. Wood-boring beetles,
caterpillars, and ants are among the harmful in¬
sect pests that serve as food for this useful bird,
which also eats many grasshopper eggs.
You have probably seen these birds running up
the trunks of fruit and shade trees in your neigh¬
borhood, pecking at the bark as they go. Usually
they begin their hunting low on the trunk and
work upward. The two front and hind toes have
sharp claws that cling tightly to the bark, while
the tail serves as a prop. Altogether this bird is
well equipped to get food, and is perfectly able to
take care of itself during summer months.
 HOW WE CAN HELP THE BIRDS 113

Courtesy of Nature Magazine

THE CEDAR WAXWING IS A SMALL BROWN BIRD.

However, in the winter the food supply for all

of the insect-eating birds is scarce, and it is well
to help out by tying bits of suet to the limbs of
trees, poles, and in other places where birds can
find them.
Cedar Waxwing

The cedar waxwing is a small brown bird. It

travels in flocks most of the time. You will sel¬
dom see one of these birds alone except during
the nesting season, which is in June. These small
birds have crests that they can raise and lower.
You may see a waxwing’s crest flatten out and
disappear while you are watching it. Its tail is
dark, but is tipped with yellow, and its wings are
brown. On each wing are three little red wax-like
feather tips. These give the waxwing its name.
114 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
It nests in fruit or shade trees, laying clay-color
spotted eggs.
The cedar waxwing probably gets its first name
because it often feeds upon the berry-like fruit of
the red cedar in neighborhoods where this tree is
found. It also eats many kinds of fruits, hut it
does not damage the orchard crops to any great
extent. It also feeds on cankerworms, and among
cultivated fruit trees, these are very common. The
nestlings are fed largely upon these insects. Can¬
kerworms do much harm to fruit trees. In one
day a small flock of waxwings will destroy thou¬
sands of cankerworms.
In neighborhoods where these birds spend the
winter, they should be given food, for neither
fruits nor insects are plentiful then. They have
been known to eat bits of apple from a feeding
shelf.
Chickadee

The black-capped chickadee is often seen on the

branches and twigs of trees and shrubs in woods
and city parks, hunting for the insects and insect
eggs upon which it feeds. He is, indeed, a busy
little hunter.
You can recognize it by its black cap and throat.
It has a back of bluish gray and underparts of
grayish white. You may he surprised sometime
to see it hang from a branch with head downward
like a circus performer. It is a tiny bird, smaller
than an English sparrow. During the winter its
song is “chick-a-dee-dee-dee,” hut in February
 HOW WE CAN HELP THE BIRDS 115

Courtesy of Nature Magazine

A CHICKADEE FEEDS AN INSECT TO ONE OF ITS YOUNG.

the song changes to “fee-bee” and this call is

used until the nesting season is over. Some
people can call the chickadee near to them by
whistling this “fee-bee” song.
The chickadee nests in a hole that it digs in a
tree or a stump not more than fifteen feet above
the ground. The nest is made of moss, grasses,
fur, and feathers. Five to nine white eggs with
brownish speckles are laid early in May.
Chickadees will nest in birdhouses and will
come to the feeding trays in the winter. When
tempted with food they often become quite tame
and will even eat out of your hand. Like other
insect-eating birds, they like suet, but they will
116 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
also feed upon crumbs and seeds from the feeding
shelf if these are provided.

White-Breasted Nuthatch

The white-breasted nuthatch is often seen with

the chickadee running over trees searching for
insects. The chickadee, however, usually does its
hunting on the smaller branches, while the nut¬
hatch prefers the trunk and the larger limbs. By
studying the pictures of these two birds you may
be able to discover the reason for the preference.
The nuthatch has a long, sharp bill with which it
can pull insects from deep crevices in the bark
into which the short beak of the chickadee could
not reach.
The white-breasted nuthatch, as the name sug¬
gests, has underparts of white. Its back is bluish
gray, and its wings are dark brown edged with
gray. It has sharp claws with which it is able to
hold fast to the bark, and it climbs down the tree,
with its head hanging downward, as easily as it
goes up the trunk. It feeds upon nuts, as well as
upon insects, and its sharp beak serves very well
as a nutcracker. The nuthatch collects acorns
and beechnuts in the autumn and stores them
away in the crevices of the bark until they are
needed. Then it breaks them open by striking
them with its bill. It is from this habit that it
gets the name, nuthatch.
Nuthatches nest in woods in the holes of trees.
Sometimes they use a hole that has been used by
 HOW WE CAN HELP THE BIRDS 117

Courtesy of Nature Magazine

THE WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH HAS A LONG, SHARP BILL.

a woodpecker. Sometimes they drill their own

nesting places. They line their nest with feathers,
fnr, or hair before they lay their creamy spec¬
kled eggs in it.
The nuthatch, because of its habit of storing
away nuts, is better prepared to care for itself
during the winter than are many of the other
insect-eating birds. However, they will visit the
feeding table if suet and nuts are provided for
them.
118 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

1. Why do woodpeckers drill holes in trees? Does

their drilling harm the trees?
2. How can you tell the downy woodpecker from
other woodpeckers ?
3. How can yon recognize the cedar waxwing? Why
does the waxwing eat very little fruit in the or¬
chards ?
4. How does the beak of the nuthatch differ from
that of the chickadee?
5. What difference does this make in their hunting
habits ?
6. Why is the nuthatch better prepared to care for
itself in winter than many of the other insect¬
eating birds?

SOME THINGS TO DO

Continue the study of your neighborhood birds that

you started in connection with last chapter.
Tie some bits of suet to your feeding table, and add
some nuts. Notice what food the different birds like.
 CHAPTER XIV

EVERGREEN TREES

1. Are there any evergreen trees in your neighborhood?

2. Where do white pine trees grow?
3. How can you tell a spruce tree from a pine tree ?

Much of the paper in our books, newspapers,

and magazines is made from the wood of the
spruce tree. The Douglas fir of the West is used
in the building of ships and bridges. Yellow pine
from the South and white pine from the North are
valuable in home building.
These are but a few of the useful evergreen
trees that grow in our country. An evergreen
tree, as you probably know, is one that does not
lose all its leaves in the autumn, as many trees
do, and which, therefore, remains green all the
year round. In the winter the evergreens, scat¬
tered among other trees with their bare branches,
make a pretty picture. With their dark green
leaves or needles, they are most beautiful when
the ground is covered with snow.
You can recognize each of the different kinds of
evergreen trees in three ways, by the size and
color of the needles, by the placement of the
needles on the twigs, and by the fruit or cones.
You have already read about the white pine,
which is one of the most valuable evergreens that
119
 120 ELEMENTABY SCIENCE

Courtesy of V. S. Forest Service

GEORGIA PINE FOREST.

grow in our forests. You will recall that its

needles, which are from three to five inches long,
grow in clusters of five, and that its cones bear
brown-winged seeds. Its wood is white, soft, and
light, and can be whittled easily with a knife.

Pines

The Georgia pine, which grows in the forests of

our southern states, supplies rosin, turpentine,
tar and pitch, which are useful in shipbuilding
and in the making of paints and varnishes. This
tree is also called the long-leaf pine and the tur¬
pentine pine. Some people think that turpentine
 EVERGREEN TREES 121

GEORGIA PINE NEEDLES. A : SCALE OF A CONE.

and rosin are made from the sap of the tree, hut
this is not entirely true. When cuts are made in
the trunk, a substance called resin comes out of
the body of the tree into the openings. This sub¬
stance is gathered and taken to a distillery, where
it is heated. Turpentine is given off as a vapor,
which is collected in pipes and cooled. As it cools
it becomes a liquid. What is left of the resin
after it gives off the turpentine is known as rosin.
There is doubtless some rosin in the varnish that
122 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
covers your desk, and there may be some in the
soap that you use to wash your hands. Tar is
obtained by distilling the wood of this tree.
Pitch results when tar is boiled.
The Georgia yellow pine sometimes grows to a
height of 100 feet. Its trunk, which may measure
four feet in thickness, is usually straight and
grows to a considerable height without branches.
You will remember that wherever branches leave
the trunk of a tree, there are knots in the lumber,
and that a trunk without branches yields lumber
that is free from knots. The wood of the yellow
pine is used for woodwork and flooring in houses.
The needles of the Georgia yellow pine are from
eight to fifteen inches long, and grow in clusters
of from three to five needles. The flowers that
hear the stamens are small and are not easily seen
on the tree. Those that bear the pistils, however,
are small cones from two to three inches long.
During the two years required for the seeds to
mature, these cones become much larger, some¬
times reaching a length of ten inches.
The pitch pine will grow on land that will pro¬
duce little else. It is the only pine that sends up
shoots after a forest fire. It thrives in sandy, dry
soil or in swamps. It gets its name from the
resin that is found in large quantities in the wood,
which is useful for fuel hut not for lumber.
In the forest where it is protected by other
trees, the trunk of the pitch pine is straight, but
in the open, the trees often grow in strange
shapes. It is a small tree that usually does not
 EVERGREEN TREES 123

Photograph by L. W. Brownell
THE PITCH PINE.

reach a height of more than forty or fifty feet.

Its leaves are dark green needles from three to
five inches long, and grow in clusters of three.
124 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

PITCH PINE NEEDLES AND CONE.

Its flowers are cones, some of which produce

pollen, while others bear the pistils from which
the seeds develop Two years are required for
the seeds to mature, and the cones in which they
grow often remain on the branches for several
years. These cones are from one to three inches
long.

Hemlocks

The hemlock grows on mountain sides, in cold

swamps, and in river gorges. Its wood splinters
easily, and is generally used only for rough boards
 EVEBGREEN TREES 125

Courtesy of JJ. S. Forest Service

THE HEMLOCK.

and for joists in buildings. There is, however, a

■western hemlock growing along the coast and as
far inland as Idaho that yields lumber used for
flooring.
126 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

HEMLOCK NEEDLES AND CONES.

The bark of the hemlock is more valuable than

the lumber, for it is rich in tannin, a substance
used in the tanning of leather. Each year about
1,000,000 cords of hemlock bark are used in the
leather industry.
The hemlocks are beautiful cone-shaped trees
that often reach a height of from 60 to 100 feet.
Their foliage is very dense, and the branches
droop a little, thus throwing off the snow in the
winter. The needles, which are flat and about one-
half inch long, are a glossy green above, with two
white lines on the underside of each, as well as a
distinct leaf stalk. Small cones are borne on the
ends of twigs, and often hang on the tree through-
Courtesy of TJ. S. Forest Service
A YOUNG DOUGLAS FIR.
128 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

DOUGLAS FIR NEEDLES AND CONE.

out the winter, although the seeds ripen in the

autumn. Two small seeds with short wings de¬
velop under each scale of the cone.

Firs

In the western states there are large forests of

Douglas fir, an evergreen tree that often reaches
a height of 200 feet with a trunk from ten to
twelve feet in diameter. The lumber is known in
 EVERGREEN TREES 129

Courtesy of U. S. Forest Service

RED SPRUCE.

the market as “Oregon pine.” In the eastern

states the Douglas fir is often planted as an
ornamental tree.
The firs are pyramid-shaped trees with flat,
blunt needles, which are a dark green above and
a bluish green below. They bear slender cones,
130 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

SPRUCE NEEDLES AND CONES.

from two to four inches long, in which the seeds

ripen during the first season.

Spruces

Small spruces are frequently used as Christmas

trees, and many of you may he familiar with their
appearance. Their needles do not grow in clus¬
ters as pine needles do, hut are scattered all over
the stem. They are small, usually not more than
an inch in length, and are sharp pointed.
White, black, and red spruces are found in the
forests of the eastern states, and the Sitka spruce
is common in the west. The red spruce frequently
grows to a height of 100 feet with a trunk of two
or three feet in diameter.
Spruce wood is used for flooring, box making,
and for wood pulp, of which paper is made. Red
spruce is used also in the making of violins and
pianos.
 EVERGREEN TREES 131

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Using the following words, fill the blanks in the sen-

fences below.
Christmas Georgia
cone-shaped pyramid-shaped
distilling spruce
fir tannin
five three

1. The needles of the white pine growT in clusters of

2. Turpentine and rosin are made by . resin,

which is obtained from the . pine.
3.is obtained by distilling the wood of the
Georgia pine.
4. The needles of the pitch pine grow in clusters of

5. The bark of the hemlock yields .

6. Hemlocks are.trees.
7. Firs are.trees.
8. The Douglas . grows extensively in our
western forests.
9. Spruces are often used for. trees.
10. Much of our paper is made from the wood of
.trees.

SOME THINGS TO DO

Study the evergreen trees of your own neighborhood.

Make drawings to show the characteristic shape of each
kind, the arrangement of the needles on the twigs, the
cones, and the seeds.
132 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
Make a collection of cones from the various species.
Look for seeds in them.
Make a collection of woods from the different ever¬
greens. Find out about the uses of each.
 CHAPTER XY

THE BAT, A FRIEND OF THE GARDEN

1. Have yon ever seen a bat?

2. What strange stories have you heard about bats ?
3. What do bats eat?

Bats are strange creatures about which curious

tales are oftentimes told. You may have heard
that they will fasten themselves to a woman’s
hair, or that they bring bedbugs into a house.
Neither of these stories is true.
Perhaps you have heard, also, that bats suck
the blood of other animals. It is true that in some
countries there are blood-sucking bats, but those
found in North America are small creatures that
feed upon insects. Because of this, they are so
useful that people in some sections build roosts
for them.
Little is really known of the habits of bats, for
they are night flyers, and spend their days hang¬
ing quietly in some hiding place. If you have
ever seen a bat, it was probably in the early twi¬
light just as it was starting out upon its nightly
search for food. They fly swiftly and silently in
a zigzag path, catching insects as they go, and
occasionally coming into a house through an open
window.
Some people think of a bat as a queer kind ot
133
134 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
bird, but it is really not a bird at all. Its body
is more like that of a mouse, except for its wings,
and they are very little like those of a bird. The
body of the little brown or red bat common in
this country is usually about three inches long,
and is covered with soft fur. The wings are hair¬
less and measure, when outstretched, almost a
foot across. They are made of very thin skin that
looks almost like rubber, and they fold up so
closely that they hardly show.
The bat has a small head, with round ears, flat
nose, and a small pink mouth. It has four legs,
but if you study their shape, you will see that
they cannot be of much use for walking or crawl¬
ing. When a bat goes about on all fours, it wab¬
bles along in a very clumsy fashion. On the front
legs or arms are four long fingers to which the
wings are attached. The wings are attached also
to the ankles and the tail.
The bat’s wings are really an extension of the
skin that covers the body. They are very sensi¬
tive to touch. You will recall that an earthworm
feels through its skin. The bat seems to feel
through its wings.
Many years ago a scientist made an interesting
experiment to discover how sensitive the bat’s
wings really are. He hung threads from the ceil¬
ing of a room just far enough apart to allow a bat
to fly through without touching the tips of its
wings. Then, he turned a blind bat loose in the
room. It flew about among the threads, without
Drawing by L. L. Pray, courtesy of Field Museum of Natural History.

ABOVE : RED BAT ; CENTER : HOARY BAT ; BELOW : SILVERY

BAT.
136 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
touching one of them. From this it seems that
the hat can feel its way with its wings.
Have you ever heard the expression, “blind as
a hat”? Bats have small jet-black eyes, and they
can probably see very well in the twilight and even
in places that would seem to us quite dark. They
are probably somewhat blinded, however, by
strong daylight, just like other creatures whose
eyes are not accustomed to strong light. It is this
fact that has led people to think hats are blind.
Unlike other creatures with wings, the bat does
not perch. On each of its arms is a small hook,
in about the same place as our thumb. With these
hooks it clings to a pole or branch and hangs,
head downward. If you should discover its hiding
place in the daytime, you would find it sleeping in
an upside-down position.
Bats choose dark, hidden places in which to
spend the days. You will find them in attics,
caves, barns, in thick bushes and in trees with
much foliage. If you should discover a bat’s hid¬
ing place in June, it would be interesting to ex¬
plore it at night. You will then probably find
young bats alone while the mother is out getting
food.
The bat does not lay eggs. The young are
born, and are fed upon milk from the mother’s
body. Animals that feed their young in this
way are known as mammals. Generally only one
young bat is born at a time, but there may be
two or even three. At first they hang to the
mother’s body when she flies about hunting for
 THE BAT 137

Photograph from American Museum of Natural History, N. Y.

HOARY BAT AND YOUNG HANGING FROM HER BODY.

food. After two weeks, they hang by their toes,

head downward, just as the adults do. The mother
leaves them while she goes in search of food, but
returns to them later in the night. When they
are three months old, they are able to leave the
roost and to fly in search of their own food.
The bat, like many of the birds you have already
studied, eats harmful insects. As it goes through
the air at night it catches many moths, flying
beetles and mosquitoes. Because of this, the bat
has been called the policeman of the air. There
are known about 450 different kinds of bats. They
are found throughout the world except in very
cold countries. In South America there are
beautiful bats with bodies and wings of white,
138 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Photograph by Paul Griswold Howes

FRUIT BAT HEAD (MAGNIFIED).

orange, or white spotted with orange. They look

like large butterflies. Some of them feed upon
fruits and do a great deaf of damage in the
orchards.
In Malay, Japan, and the Philippine Islands,
there is a very large bat known as the “flying
fox,” because of its resemblance to a fox. It has
pointed ears and a sharp nose. Its body is a
foot long, and its wings, when outstretched, meas¬
ure a foot across. It is a destructive bat because
it feeds on fruit, therefore it is not allowed to en¬
ter this country.
Unlike their foreign relatives, however, the bats
that live in our country are all small, harmless
creatures that do a great deal of good by feeding
 THE BAT 139
on harmful insects. Because of this, bats should
be protected.

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Some of the following sentences are true; some are

not true. On a piece of paper write the number of each
sentence. If it is true, write Yes beside the number. If
it is false, write No.
1. Bats often fasten themselves to a woman’s hair.
2. The bats found in this country feed upon insects.
3. The bat’s wings are extensions of the skin that
covers its body.
4. Bats perch on the branches of trees in the day¬
time.
5. Animals that feed their young upon milk from
their bodies are known as mammals.
6. The bat is a mammal.
7. The bat lays eggs.
8. Some bats feed upon fruit.
9. All bats are blind.
10. The wings of a bat are very sensitive.

SOME THINGS TO DO

If you can capture a bat, .bring it into the schoolroom

and keep it in a cage for a few days while you study it.
You can feed it upon bits of raw meat or flies by giving
them to it on the point of a pencil or a toothpick.
Study the wings to see how the tail and legs make a
skeleton for them. Notice that the bat closes its wings
just as you would close a jackknife.
If you cannot get a live bat, find as many pictures of
bats as you can and study them.
140 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
Draw a diagram of a bat with outstretched wings,
showing the wing skeleton.
Look for bats in attics, barns, bushes, and trees. If
you find one, notice how it hangs, head downward. How
does it act if you disturb it?
 CHAPTER XVI

RATS AND MICE

1. Where have you seen rats or mice?

2. What do these animals eat?
3. Have you ever found a mouse’s nest?

Rats and mice are found all over the world.

They live both in the country and in the city.
They seem to follow man wherever he goes. They
cross the ocean in boats, and travel long distances
on railroad trains.
There are many kinds of rats and mice, but the
two most common varieties are the brown rat and
the gray house mouse. You have already read
about the field mouse. If you live in the city,
perhaps you have never seen one of these little
creatures, but you have surely seen the little gray
house mouse.
The brown rat, which is about nine inches long,
has many names. It is called the barn rat, alley
rat, wharf rat, or sewer rat. These names suggest
the many different places in which the animal
lives.
This rat is dangerous, for it carries the germs
of a disease called the bubonic plague. Rats
have this disease, as well as people, who usually
get it from the bites of fleas that have been living
on the bodies of diseased rats. The Black Death
141
142 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Photograph from American Museum of Natural History, N. Y.

THE BROWN RAT IS A DANGEROUS ANIMAL.

that occurred in Europe about six hundred years

ago was caused by the bubonic plague. This
plague is still common in some oriental countries.
The United States Public Health Service protects
us from this disease by supervising incoming ships
to prevent rats on them from crawling ashore.
When a ship comes from a foreign port where
there may have been people sick with bubonic
plague, it is cleaned of all rats.
Rats are destructive, as well as dangerous.
They devour almost every kind of food that comes
in their way. Usually you will find them numer¬
ous where they can find food easily. For this
reason, garbage should not he allowed to accumu¬
late, and should he kept in tightly closed cans.
Even piles of rags and paper will attract rats,
 RATS AND MICE

since they gnaw almost everything that conies in

their way. They gnaw leather and clothing and
make holes in the walls of buildings. Sometimes
reservoirs of
water are lost
because rats
have made
holes through
the walls. They
gnaw the cover¬
ing from elec-
tric wires,
sometimes caus¬
ing fires. It has
been estimated
that rats do
$200,000,000
worth of dam¬
age annually in
the United
States. This
means that each
year rats de¬
stroy nearly $2
worth of prop¬
erty for every THE WHITE DISCS ARE RAT GUARDS
USED ON SHIPS TO PREVENT RATS FROM
man, woman,
CRAWLING ASHORE.
and child in
this country. Rats are truly destructive animals.
Rats increase in number very rapidly. At the
age of three or four months the female rat bears
her first young ones. There are usually about ten
144 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Courtesy of TJ. S. Biological Survey

RATS GNAW ALMOST EVERYTHING THAT COMES IN THEIR
WAY.

young rats in each family, and young ones are

born to each female from sis to ten times in a
year. You might find it interesting to figure how
many grandchildren a mother rat might have at
the end of the first year of her life. Someone
has figured that if none of the young were killed,
a pair of rats might in three years have about
360,000,000 descendants. This is about three
times the number of people in the United States.
 RATS AND MICE 145

Drawing by L. L. Pray, courtesy of Field Museum of Natural History

GARBAGE ATTRACTS RATS, WHICH ARE CARRIERS OF DISEASE.

There are several ways of getting rid of rats.

Sometimes traps are set for them; sometimes food
is poisoned and placed where they can easily get
it. Sometimes when they become very numerous,
gas is pumped into their holes to suffocate them,
but great care must be taken in doing this, since
gas is poisonous to people and to other animals as
well. Fox terriers are usually good rat hunters,
and one of these quick, little dogs will often keep
a place free from both rats and mice. Rats be¬
come very cunning with age, and they learn to
avoid all the schemes to destroy them.
Rats are always harmful to people. They are
not only very destructive, but they are danger¬
ous as well, for they are carriers of disease.
146 ELEMENT AEY SCIENCE

Unless we keep up our fight against them, they

will surely increase in number, since they breed
rapidly and their natural enemies, the hawks and
the owls, are decreasing in number each year.
Eats have natural enemies just as insects have.
The little dust-colored house mouse is so well
known that we need not stop to describe it. Ex¬
cept for its small size, it is very similar in appear¬
ance to the rat. You have all probably seen a
mouse scamper through some small hole out of
sight, when you attempted to catch it. Perhaps
you have seen people jump upon chairs and tables
to get out of the way of one of these tiny little
creatures.
Mice are not dangerous, for they do not carry
disease germs as brown rats do. Because they
are so much smaller than rats, the damage they
do is not so great, but they are destructive
also. They may gnaw holes in your best suit of
clothes, or nibble the corners off some prized
cookies that you have made.
Mice make their nests of tiny bits of paper and
clothing. If you were to shake one of these nests
out of an old mattress that had been stored in an
attic or some similar hiding place, the bits of
paper would probably fly like so much confetti.
You might find some young mice in the nest, too.
Mice multiply as rapidly as rats, and if they are
not destroyed, they can become a great nuisance.
The best ways to get rid of mice are to keep all
foods well covered so that there will be nothing to
attract them and to set traps or keep a cat to catch
Drawing by L. L. Pray, courtesy of Field Museum of Natural History

HOUSE MICE ARE DESTRUCTIVE BUT DO NOT CARRY DISEASE GERMS.

148 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
those that come. It is wise, too, to protect their
natural enemies. A small screech owl, living in or
near a building, will destroy many mice.

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

1. The brown rat is also called by other names.

Make a list of some of them.
2. Brown rats are both dangerous and destructive.
In what way are they dangerous? What do they
destroy ? How much damage has it been estimated
that they do every year in this country ?
3. Rats increase rapidly in number. How many
young rats are usually born at a time ? How many
young ones are usually born each year to a female
rat? It has been estimated that one pair of rats
might in three years have how many descendants ?
4. Mention several common ways in which rats are
destroyed.
5. Are house mice dangerous? Are they as destruc¬
tive as brown rats?

SOME THINGS TO DO

If possible, catch a rat or a mouse in a box trap and

bring it to the classroom for observation.
Collect different types of traps used for catching ani¬
mals. Which kind causes the least suffering ?
Make posters to show the destruction and damage done
by rats. Make graphs or diagrams to show the cost of
feeding them.
 CHAPTER XVII

BURROWING ANIMALS, ENEMIES OF THE GARDEN

1. What animals live under the ground a part of the

time ?
2. What animals live under ground almost all the time ?
3. What do these burrowing animals feed upon?

If you have not already met “Brer Rabbit”

in a book named Uncle Remus, written by Joel
Chandler Harris, you should read the book soon.
You will surely agree that he is one of the most
lovable and funniest animals that was ever de¬
scribed in a book. He was often in trouble, for
he dug holes where they were not wanted and
he stole things to eat. Of course “Brer Rab¬
bit” never meant to do anything wrong. Neither
do his brothers and sisters, the rabbits of our
fields and gardens, hut they are often very trou¬
blesome to the farmer and the gardener.
The rabbits and the hares, which are members
of the same animal family, are perhaps the best
known of all the creatures that dig and burrow
in the earth. It is very interesting to watch
them as they go hopping through the fields and
gardens and to learn about their habits, but the
crops have a better chance of growing if none
of these animals are about. In the summer rab¬
bits and hares feed upon green twigs and
149
150 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Photograph by Robert B. Rockwell

THE COTTONTAIL RABBIT BREEDS VERY RAPIDLY.

branches, buds, bark, and leaves of plants. They

like to nibble the fresh green grass and the ten¬
der leaves of the garden crops. In the winter
when other food is scarce they gnaw the bark of
trees and bushes, sometimes destroying many of
the young trees in orchards.
The cottontail is perhaps the best known of
all the rabbits that live in this country. It is a
small, grayish brown rabbit, which usually does
not weigh more than two or three pounds. It gets
its name from the fluffy, snow-white fur that cov¬
ers the under side of its tail. No doubt you have
seen the cottontails hopping about the fields and
gardens of your neighborhood, for they are found
throughout the greater part of the United States.
These small rabbits live either in burrows
under the ground, or in shallow holes on the sur¬
face of the earth. They frequently make their
homes in holes that other burrowing animals have
 BURROWING ANIMALS 151

Photograph from American Museum of Natural Uistory, N. Y.

HARE AND YOUNG IN THE NEST.

dug. Sometimes, however, the mother rabbit

merely digs a shallow hole in the earth’s surface.
She may make it just large enough to hold her¬
self and her family of young rabbits, lining it
with grass and with fur from her own body.
Have you ever seen a rabbit nest of this kind?
When a cottontail is frightened, it is likely to
stand erect on its hind legs for a moment, and
then to crouch low on the ground, in hiding but
all ready to spring. If you approach it, away it
hops in flying leaps, so swiftly that it looks like
a gray streak. In two or three seconds only the
white tail is seen, and then that is gone.
Although many cottontails are shot by hunters,
they are numerous enough to be a great
nuisance in many parts of the country. Ihey
152 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
breed very rapidly. Families of three to eight
young ones are often born to female rabbits four
to eight times during the year. Since rabbits
Usually live for seven or eight years if they are not
killed, you can see that they might increase in
number very rapidly. This is especially true since
many of their natural enemies, such as the
weasels, wolves, eagles, hawks, owls, and snakes
have decreased in number.
If you live in one of the western states, you
have no doubt seen the jack rabbit, which is com¬
mon throughout the western part of our country.
It is really a hare, not a rabbit. Hares are larger
than rabbits, and have longer legs and ears, as
you can see by comparing the picture of the jack
rabbit with that of the cottontail.
You may recall that the cottontail and other
wild rabbits are grayish brown in color that is
so much like the surroundings that they are not
easily seen. Many hares have protective color¬
ing that is still more interesting. California jack
rabbits, for instance, have different colors accord¬
ing to their surroundings. On the desert they
are sand color, while in other localities they
range from very light to dark gray. Unlike the
rabbits, which spend much of their time hidden
in the shrubbery, the hares live in the open fields,
where their protective coloring is very useful to
them. Snowshoe rabbits, so called because their
large hind feet, heavily covered with fur, resem¬
ble snowshoes, change from brown to white in the
winter time. It is very difficult to see these white
 BURROWING ANIMALS 153

Courtesy of U. S. Biological Survey

SOMETIMES JACK RABBITS BECOME SO NUMEROUS IT IS NEC¬

ESSARY TO ROUND THEM UP AND KILL THEM.

animals on the snow-covered country where they

live.
Like the rabbits, the hares multiply very rap¬
idly, and in some sections of the country they
are numerous and become very troublesome. In
one section of California the farmers found it
necessary to make plans to get rid of them to
save their crops. In one great drive 40,000 hares
were killed.
There are other burrowing animals that do
more damage to the crops in some sections of
the United States than the hares and rabbits do,
and which are much harder to fight. One of these
154 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Photograph by L. W. Brownell

THE POCKET GOPHERS ARE SEEN BY FEW PEOPLE.

is the pocket gopher, which is found in many of

the states west of the Mississippi River.
The pocket gophers are seen by few people,
even where they are numerous, since they spend
most of their time underground. They are brown
or gray animals about the size of rats. They
have round, blunt heads, very short necks, heavy
shoulders, and wide bodies. Their ears look like
small rims on the sides of their heads. Their
small eyes are rather useless in strong daylight,
but serve the gophers well in the darkness where
they spend most of their time. Their front teeth
are broad and sharp like chisels. Their short tails
are naked, and are very sensitive. Sometimes
gophers run backwards, feeling their way along
with their tails. On each side of the head under
 BURROWING ANIMALS 155
the skin there is a large pocket, from which the
pocket gopher gets its name. These pockets are
lined with fur and open on the outside of the
head, rather than into the mouth. With its front
paws, the animal fills them with the food that it
carries, emptying the pockets later by pressing
with its paws on the outside.

THE GOPHER FILLS THE POCKETS

ON THE SIDE OF ITS HEAD WITH
FOOD.

About six inches below the surface of the earth

the gopher burrows, eating the bulbs, roots, and
woody fibers that it finds as it goes along.
Gophers sometimes eat the roots of fruit trees.
They have been known to tunnel under a row of
potatoes, eating the potatoes and killing the
plants. Sometimes they eat the roots of grain or
of alfalfa, doing much damage to the crops.
It is interesting to watch a gopher dig a hole.
It digs with its sharp claws, pushing the dirt out
of the hole and hurrying back for another load.
Soon the entrance to the tunnel is covered with
a mound of the dirt that has been removed from
beneath the surface. This mound is made larger
by the dirt that the gopher pushes up underneath
156 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
it as it continues to dig. These gopher mounds
or hills are very common in neighborhoods
where these animals make their homes. They are
found not only at the beginning of the tunnel,
but at different places above it, since much of the
earth from the tunnels is brought to the surface
through side passages.
Gophers have some natural enemies. Among
them are the foxes, coyotes, weasels, some snakes,
owls, and hawks. In spite of these, however, there
are still many gophers, for as many as seven
young ones are often born at one time. Farmers
and gardeners sometimes make war upon them
by setting traps in their tunnels or by driving
them out with water. When the fields in the west
are irrigated in the spring of the year, thousands
of gophers are drowned or driven from their
holes. Many of those that come out alive are
killed by men and dogs.
Gophers, hares, and rabbits are but a few of
the burrowing animals that damage the gardens
and fields. Moles, wood rats, and field mice are
common in many places. Field mice look like
house mice, but they make their homes in grassy
meadows, in the banks of streams, in swamps,
marshes, and in the woods.
Wherever they live, you will find smoothly
worn roads or runways about an inch in width.
Whole networks of these can often be found.
They lead to burrows or underground rooms filled
with large nests of dry grass. In wet ground
the nests are built above the ground in the grass.
 BURROWING ANIMALS 157
Some swamps are full of the nests of field mice
and they can he seen as you pass by.
In the summer these mice feed upon growing-
grass, clover, alfalfa, grain, seeds, bulbs, root
crops, and garden vegetables. In the harvest sea¬
son they live under shocks of wheat and corn,
eating the grain. In the winter time when food
is scarce they gnaw the bark from trees and chew
the roots. Sometimes entire orchards are de¬
stroyed in this way.
At times field mice increase in number and do
a great deal of damage. They have been known
to destroy whole fields of grain and alfalfa.
Wherever there is enough food and their natural
enemies are scarce, wild life increases rapidly in
number.
SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT
Fill in the word or words to complete these sentences
correctly.
1. The . rabbit gets its name from the fluffy
snow-white fur that covers the underside of its tail.
2. The jack rabbit is a.instead of a rabbit.
3. Snowshoe rabbits change from brown to . in
the winter time.
4. Pocket gophers are . or . m color, and
are about the size of.
5. They make .under the earth with . of
dirt at the entrances.

SOME THINGS TO DO
You will find it interesting to observe as many of the
facts stated in this chapter as you can. If you live
158 ELEMENTABY SCIENCE
where you can see these burrowing animals out-of-doors,
you can find out a great many things about them by ob¬
serving them carefully.
Nothing was told you in this chapter about the kinds
of tracks that are made by rabbits. This is one of the
things that you can probably find out for yourself. If
you are keeping a science notebook, draw some pictures
of rabbit tracks in it, and explain just how the animal
makes these tracks. Try to discover this by yourself.
You can make a very interesting science notebook by
recording what you notice from day to day. You may
wish to form a science club that will go on field trips
and have meetings to discuss what the different members
have seen.
 CHAPTER XVIII

THE WONDERS OF THE SKY

1. How can you locate the North Star?

2. Why is it often called the Pole Star?
3. Do yon know any myths about the stars?

Since very early times people have gazed at the

stars. The Persians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Ro¬
mans imagined they saw in the constellations, or
star groups, the shapes of lions, bulls, fish, chairs,
and people.
They gave names to the constellations and in¬
vented stories about them. These stories are
called myth stories. They found one star group
they thought looked like a big and a little bear,
and they made up an interesting story about it.
Once upon a time, they said, there was a most
beautiful woman, of whom the goddess Juno be¬
came so jealous that she changed her into a bear.
This woman had a son who never knew of the
change. When he grew up he became a hunter,
and one day attempted to kill the bear that was
really his own mother. The god, Jupiter, seeing
what was about to happen, changed the son into
a little bear, and placed him with his mother in
the sky, where they appear as shining stars.
Juno, according to the story, never allowed these
stars to rest, but kept them forever moving
around and around the North Star.
159
ONE DAY HE ATTEMPTED TO KILL THE BEAR THAT WAS
REALLY HIS OWN MOTHER.
 THE WONDERS OF THE SKY 161

If you have studied the stars in the lower

grades, probably you have already learned to lo¬
cate the North Star, the Milky Way, the Big and
Little Dippers, and Cassiopeia’s Chair, which are
all in the northern sky, and Orion and his dogs
in the southern sky. If you have not, the map
on the opposite page will help you to find them.
The Big Dipper can he found very easily, for
it looks like a great dipper with a howl and a long-
handle. The two stars that form the outer edge
of the bowl are called The Pointers. They point
toward the North Star, which is right at the end
of the handle of the Little Dipper. The Little
Dipper is the Little Bear of the ancient myth,
the handle being the tail, and the Big Dipper
forms a part of the Great Bear. You may think,
as most people do, that they resemble dippers
more than they do bears.
The North Star lies just above the North Pole,
and therefore, from the northern hemisphere, it
appears never to set. Can you tell why? Think
over what you know of the rotation of the earth,
and you can readily discover the reason. The
Dippers, or Bears, do not set either, hut as the
earth rotates, they appear to travel around the
North Star. The ancients based the myth about
the constellation on this fact. They could not
account for it as we can to-day, for they did not
know that the earth rotates.
You will find it interesting to study the stars
and to learn to know some of the constellations.
When you have located the Big Dipper and the
LOOKING SOUTH AT THE CONSTELLATIONS ON A SUMMER’S EVE.
164 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
North Star in the sky, they will help you to find
the other northern constellations. Using the star
maps in this chapter as your guide, you can read¬
ily find Cassiopeia’s Chair, Cepheus, and the
Dragon by tracing their positions from the North
Star and the Big Dipper.
During January, February, and March, the con¬
stellation of Orion can easily be seen in the south¬
ern sky. Three stars in a row form Orion’s belt.
From the belt hangs a sword made up of a curv¬
ing line of stars. Above the belt is the red star,
Betelgeuse, and below the belt, the white star,
Rigel. In this group of stars the people of an¬
cient times saw a hunter with belt and sword.
Rigel was a spur on his heels; Betelgeuse, a great
red jewel on his shoulder.
Orion’s club was raised to strike a bull, the
head of which is represented by a V-shaped star
group called the Hyades, with the ruddy star,
Aldebaran, as the eye.
Behind the hunter are Sirius and Procyon,
which the ancients declared to be his dogs.
Sirius, the Great Dog Star, is the most brilliant
of all the stars. Procyon is the name of the Little
Dog Star, although it is also a very bright star.
Northwest of Orion is a constellation known as
the Pleiades, which are often called the seven sis¬
ters. Only six stars in this group can be seen
without an instrument, but the legend about it
says that once upon a time there were seven.
Many stories have been invented to account for
the lost star. The truth is that the telescope
 THE WONDERS OF THE SKY 165
shows nine large stars, each of which has been
given a name, and over 3,000 smaller ones in
this foggy spot.
Northeast of Orion are the twin boys, Castor
and Pollux. This constellation is called Gem¬
ini, the Latin word for twins. The story says
that these twins loved each other so much that
they were placed in the sky so that they could
always be together.
To-day we know many facts about the stars
that were not known to the ancient people. As¬
tronomers have studied the heavens with the aid
of the telescope and have learned many interest¬
ing things.
No doubt you have looked into the sky and have
wondered how far away the stars are, and why
they are not all of the same color. Astronomers
tell us that the color of a star depends upon its
age. A young star shines white or blue. As it
grows older, it turns yellow like the sun, and then
red. Finally it becomes dark. Scientists tell us
that there are many dark stars in the sky. No
one knows just how old the stars are, but from
their colors we can tell which are older.
The stars are so far away from the earth that
if you were to speak of the distances in miles,
the numbers would be so great that they would
not be easily understood. For this reason, as¬
tronomers use the light year instead of miles to
tell us the distance of stars from the earth. Light
travels 186,000 miles every second. One light
year is the distance that light travels in one year.
166 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
The nearest star is so far from us that it takes
four years for its light to reach us. In other
words* it is four light years distant from us. It
is difficult for us to understand that the light that
reaches us from the most distant stars really left
those stars thousands of years ago.
The stars have been divided into six groups
according to their brightness. The most bril¬
liant ones are said to be stars of the first mag¬
nitude. Those that can barely be seen without
the aid of instruments are stars of the sixth mag¬
nitude. The difference in the brightness of the
stars may be due, either to the amount of light
that the star gives off, or to the distance of the
star from the earth.
No doubt you are wondering what these stars
are, which appear to us as only dots of light in
the sky. You may be surprised to learn that
each of them is a great sun, similar to the sun
about which our earth revolves. In other words,
each shining star is a great mass of white-hot
gases that gives off light and heat. Some stars
are smaller than our sun, but others are many
thousands of times larger. You will learn more
of the wonders of the sky as you continue your
study of science.

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

1. Tell in your own words the myth that was in¬

vented in ancient times to account for the constella¬
tions of the Great and Little Bears.
 THE WONDERS OF THE SKY 167
2. Explain how this constellation is located as com¬
pared to the “dippers.”
3. Tell what the ancient people saw in the constella¬
tion of Orion.
4. Explain what scientists have learned about the
ages of the different stars, and about their dis¬
tance from the earth.
5. Explain how stars are grouped by scientists ac¬
cording to their brightness.

SOME THINGS TO DO

Study the stars to find out how many of the constella¬

tions you know.
Make a drawing of the heavens and put in the dif¬
ferent stars and constellations that you know in the
sky. Do not put in any that you have not actually seen
without help from any one. You can keep this map
until the end of the year, and'it will be a record of your
knowledge of the stars by themselves and in constella¬
tions.
You can use the maps in this book to help you to find
the constellations, and you may be able to find someone
who will help to point them out to you.
 CHAPTER XIX

OUR SERVANT, HEAT

1. What makes the sand hot in the summer?

2. Why do you get warm when you stand in front of a
fire ?
3. Why do your hands get warm when you slide down
a rope?

What is the hottest thing that you know!

Some of you will say “the sun,” while others will
say ‘‘a hot stove, ” “ a burning match,” “a glass,’’
“hot water,” “steam” and ever so many other
things. We know some of these are hot because
they burn us. We know the sun is hot because
it makes us warm in the summer time. We can
tell that some things are hot when we see steam
come from them. From where does the heat come?
We know that the sun gives us much of our
heat. In the summer time when it passes straight
above our heads the days are hot. It must take
a lot of heat to make the air and everything about
us so warm. The hot stove and the hot water
get their heat from things that burn. Anything
that is near tire for a length of time gets hot.
There are other ways of making heat.
If we rub two half dollars together, they get
hot. The Indians used to rub soft sticks together
until they became so hot that they burst into
168

A
 OUR SERVANT, HEAT 1C9

THERE IS AIR IN THE JAR, THE CANDLE BURNS. C : THE

OXYGEN IN THE JAR HAS BEEN CONSUMED.

flame. Indians used to make their fires in this

way. Perhaps you can tell how Boy Scouts make
fire. If you slide down a rope, your hands may
get so hot that they become blistered. Rubbing
things together always makes heat. When two
rough things are rubbed together, there is more
heat made than when smooth things are rubbed.
This is true because the rough parts hinder one
another when we try to slide one over the other.
This rubbing is called friction. Heat, then, may
come from the sun, from burning, and from
friction.
Of the three ways of producing heat, burning
170 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Photograph by Ewing Galloway, N. Y.

A BOY SCOUT CAN MAKE FIRE BY SPINNING THE STICK
AGAINST A PIECE OF SOFT WOOD.

is the one most commonly used. What do you

think happens when things burn? You can find
out by thinking of some things which you already
know. If you put a fruit jar over a burning can¬
dle, as shown in the picture, what do you think
 OUR SERVANT, HEAT 171

would happen! Of course, the flame would go out

after a few minutes. You may have been told that
the flame goes out because the flame needs air to
keep burning. There' is something in the air that
keeps the candle burning. It is a gas called
oxygen. That is a new word but one you will hear
many times. All air is a mixture of gases of which
oxygen is one. Any time a fire cannot get oxygen
it will stop burning. That is why we smother
fires by throwing sand or blankets on them. You
might he interested to know that if people can¬
not breathe oxygen they are smothered, too. Can
you understand why!
There is one more thing about burning you
should know to understand how fires are started.
The Boy Scout turns the round stick in the hole
made in a soft piece of wood until the wood be¬
comes very hot. If you remember about fric¬
tion, you will know why. When the wood gets
hot enough, the oxygen in the air joins with the
wood and burns. So in order to burn anything
we must have air, and the thing to be burned
must be so hot that it will combine with the oxygen
in the air.
There are one or two other ways of making
heat which you may know. If lime is put into
water, it will boil and send off steam. This is
heat from mixing things. When you pump up
an automobile tire, the pump will become hot
partly because of the friction of the piston inside
of the pump. Heat will also come because the
air inside the pump is being squeezed together
172 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

HEAT IS GIVEN OFF WHEN LIME AND WATER MIX.

or compressed. Whenever air is compressed, it

becomes warmer.
Getting heat from electricity is also becom¬
ing very common now-a-days. In many homes are
toasters, electric heaters, water heaters, and elec¬
tric stoves. Getting heat from electricity is very
simple. All you need is a wire or metal through
which electricity does not easily pass. If you
watch an electric heater, you know that the wire
becomes red hot and stays that way until the elec¬
tricity is turned off. If large copper wire were
placed in an electric toaster, instead of the spe¬
cial kind of wire used, it would be impossible to
toast bread because the copper wire does not get
hot enough. Iron wires are heated more than
copper wires of the same size. A wire called
nichrome (ni-krom') is generally used in toast¬
ers, heaters, and stoves. The coils on the stoves
are larger than those on the toaster but are made
 OUR SERVANT, HEAT 173

Courtesy of Edison General Electric Appliance Co.

HEAT FROM ELECTRICITY.

in the same way. It is not only possible but

probable that electricity will be used for nearly
all cooking and heating a hundred years from
now.
174 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

HOW HEAT IS CARRIED TO THE LID OF A STOVE.

When a fire is burning in the stove, the stove

becomes hot. The heat is carried to the lid from
the tire under it. When you stir something hot
with a silver spoon, and the spoon gets so warm
that you cannot hold it, the heat has been carried
through the spoon. When anything feels hot, it
is because heat has been carried or conducted
through it. Heat carried in this way is said to
be carried by conduction. Things through which
heat passes easily are said to be good conductors
of heat. Wooden handles are put on cooking
forks and cake turners because wood is a poor
conductor of heat.
One of the poorest conductors or carriers of
heat is air. A bed comforter is warm because
there is air in the fluffy padding, and heat, there¬
fore, does not pass easily through it. The com¬
forter does not make heat hut keeps the heat of
the body of the one sleeping under it from es¬
caping. Warm clothes all held the heat of the
 OUR SERVANT, HEAT 175

CROSS SECTION OF A
VACUUM BOTTLE.

body. A vacuum bottle has a space around it

in which there is little or no air. The air is
pumped out just as it is from electric light bulbs.
Because heat does not pass through space with¬
out air in it, the coffee or hot things in the
vacuum bottle stay warm. Likewise if cold lemon¬
ade or ice water is placed in a vacuum bottle,
it will keep cold because the heat cannot get to
it from the outside.
You may wonder how heat from a stove can
warm a whole room if the air is a poor con¬
ductor of heat. There are two other ways of
176 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

carrying heat other than by conduction. Heat may

be carried as it is from the sun. The sun’s heat
reaches the earth in the same way light does.
This way of carrying heat is called radiation.
You can remember that word from the radiator
on the automobile. The way heat from a radiator
or stove warms a room is by means of currents
of air carrying heat around the room. The cur¬
rents are caused because the warm air is lighter
than the cool air and so goes up toward the ceil¬
ing, The cool air comes down. This makes
round or circular currents like that shown in the
picture. You may like to know that this way of
carrying heat is called convection. When you
study science in the seventh and eighth grades,
you will learn more about that word.
Heat comes to us from the sun, which is 93,-
000,000 miles away, in eight minutes. We have
 USES OF HEAT.
A: Cooking; B: Sanitation; C. Heating; D: Brick-making;
E: Transportation.
178 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
just learned that it comes to us by radiation. It
could not come in eight minutes by conduction or
convection. If you turn on an electric light hold¬
ing one hand near the bulb, you will feel the heat
striking your hand before the glass bulb even gets
warm. This is called radiation. The radiator
sends out heat by radiation, too. You have now
learned the three ways by which heat is carried,
hut not much has been said about the use we make
of heat.
If you were asked to name all the ways heat
is used, it would take a long time to do it. We
could not live or work with much comfort in the
winter time if our homes, factories, and stores
were not heated. There are many things that
we could not make without heat. We could not
bake bread, pies, cook food, make brick and
dishes, and ever so many other things if we did
not have heat. We could not run trains and boats
without heat to make steam engines go and heat
to make electricity. There are just thousands
of things that heat does for us. That is why we
call it our servant.

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

1. How do you know that friction releases heat!

2. How were fires started before we had matches ?
3. Describe the three ways in which heat travels.
4. In which way does heat come to us from the sun ?
5. List as many ways as you can in which heat helps
us.
 OUR SERVANT, HEAT 179

SOME THINGS TO DO

This chapter suggests many interesting experiments

that you may perform. You will probably wish to try
to start a fire by friction. It is not so very easy to do,
because a great deal of friction is needed to make the
thing to be burned hot enough to burst into flame.
You will be interested in studying the ways homes
are heated. You can find out a good many things about
it by yourself, and perhaps you can talk it over with
some older person, and then explain what you find out
to the class. If you have a fireplace, you may be able
to trace the currents of heated air in the room by
placing a thermometer in different places.
Place a lighted candle in a saucer as shown in the
diagram in this chapter. Cover it with a fruit jar.
Watch it and see what happens.
 CHAPTER XX

OUR TOYS AND OTHER MACHINES

1. What toys do yon like best?

2. What toys do you have that are like the machines
men use?
3. What machines do you use every day?

Did you ever wonder what kind of toys the boys

and girls of cave-man times used to have? They
must have been very simple compared with those
we have and use to-day. In early times people
did not have large complicated machines like
those we use now to do our work. The only tool of
the earliest savages was a club. To-day men
need many tools and machines to help them in
their work.
If some one asked you to describe a machine,
you would probably say that it has wheels, a crank
and screws and that it also has a frame, bolts, and
a body. The automobile is a very complicated ma¬
chine, but it is really made up of many simple
machines. If someone should tell you that the
door knob, the scissors, the hammer, and your
toy wheelbarrow are simple machines, you might
be surprised. They, too, are machines. There
are many common devices about us like these
that are reallv simple machines. You are now
180
 OUR TOYS AND OTHER MACHINES 181

going to read about some of these devices that

help us work and make us happy in our play.

Machines We Like to Use

We are all familiar with the seesaw or teeter-

totter. Let us look at it again and see how it
works as a lever or simple machine. It consists
of a long board resting on some kind of support
which is called the fulcrum (ful'krum). One per¬
son on the seesaw is the weight and the other is
the force. Let us say that the person on the
end nearest the ground is the weight and the per¬
son on the other end is the force. If the force is
greater than the weight it will lift it. The weight
and force change, and work is being done, as the
seesaw is moving up and down, up and down.
Perhaps you do not know that you are doing
work while you are having a good time on the see¬
saw. Even though children are playing, they are
working each time one lifts the other on this sim¬
ple machine. The elevator is doing work when
it takes you up to the next floor in the department
store. No work, however, is being done when the
elevator is stopped at one of the floors. Some
weight must be moved before we are doing work.
When we lift or move a weight, we are doing
what the scientist calls work. Let us see how
many times in our play with toys we are really
doing work.
Do you know that a little four-year-old boy can
lift you on the see-saw? If you will try some
182 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Photograph by E. M. Persing
A LITTLE FOUR-YEAR-OLD BOY CAN LIFT AN OLDER BOY.

experiments, you will find out how this can he

done and how to use a lever of this kind. Ask
a heavy boy to sit on one end of the seesaw, and
then try to have a lighter boy lift him by sitting
on the opposite end. The lighter boy should sit
at the very end. Then ask the heavier boy to
move toward the fulcrum until the other boy can
lift him.
If you are just using a long board for your see¬
saw, it will he easy to move the board on the ful¬
crum so that the two boys will balance on the
seesaw.
If you have a toy dump truck like the one in
the picture, you can easily see the levers. When
you pull the lever, the front end of the body of the
truck rises and dumps the load. With this little
 OUR TOYS AND OTHER MACHINES 183

WHEN YOU PULL THE LEVER OP THE DUMP TRUCK, THE

FRONT END RISES.

device you will find it easy to unload sand from

your truck. How would you unload sand if you
could not dump it?
You will see that the lever on this truck is much
like the seesaw, but the two sides are not equal.
One side is longer than the other. Can you tell
why? Do you remember what happened when one
side of the seesaw was longer than the other?
Find the fulcrum in the picture of the toy dump
truck. The force is usually applied by pulling
with the hand and the weight you lift is the load
on the front part of the truck.
If you will look at a real dump truck, you will
find several levers. Watch the driver apply the
184 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Courtesy of Moline Pressed Steel Co.

THE WEIGHT IN THE TOY STEAM SHOVEL IS LIFTED BY THE
CHAIN ATTACHED TO THE WINDLASS.

brakes. If he puts his foot on the brake pedal,

he is using a lever, and if he pulls the hand brake,
he is using another lever. There are also many
other simple machines that you cannot see unless
you examine the truck carefully.
In early times man used nothing but a sharp
stick for digging. Then he learned to make a
simple kind of hoe by fastening a piece of bone
to a handle. These devices could not well be used
to-day. It would require too much time to do
our work with them. Instead of these crude in¬
struments we now have the steam shovel. This
huge digging device will load a truck with sev-
 OUR TOYS AND OTHER MACHINES 185

6: windlass.

eral tons of rock or sand in a few minutes. In

the toy steam shovel shown on page 184 you will
see that several levers are used as well as a wind¬
lass, which you will read about a little later. The
load or weight in the shovel is lifted by the chain
which is attached to the windlass. Unlike the large
steam shovels our toy is run by hand.
There are many other levers that we use nearly
every day. Although we could get along without
them, our work is made easier and quicker if we
use them. If you have tried to crack an English
walnut with your fingers, you know how hard it
186 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
is to do. When you use a nutcracker, the hard
shell of the nut breaks easily. You will see that
the fulcrum is at the end in this lever and the
weight is applied at the walnut.
The shovel, the pliers, and the scissors are also
useful levers. Can you tell how they work?
The wheelbarrow is really a kind of lever that
we push about from place to place. The fulcrum
is at the axle of the wheel. The weight may he
anywhere on the wheelbarrow and the force is
applied at the handles where you lift them.

Toys Like Machines Men Use

You probably have used the wheel and axle in

playing with some of your toys. The steering
wheel on your dump truck is an example of this
simple machine. You can see that it is fastened
to an iron rod that turns when you move the
wheel. Under the automobile the iron rod is at¬
tached to the front wheels. When the steering
wheel is turned, the front wheels are turned to¬
ward one side of the road. If you try to move the
wheels with your hands you will realize how much
more difficult it is than to move them by means of
this simple machine.
In some of onr tov fire trucks a windlass is
used to raise the ladders. If you will examine it
you can easily see that it is a round piece of wood
or iron with a crank attached to it. The wind¬
lass is really a wheel and axle. The round piece
is the axle and the crank serves as a wheel. You
 OUR TOYS AND OTHER MACHINES 187

WHEN THE STEERING WHEEL IS TURNED, THE WHEELS TURN

TO ONE SIDE OF THE ROAD.

can imagine the circle the crank makes as it is

turned around. This should help you to under¬
stand how the crank is used instead of a wheel.
The pile driver is familiar to you all. Per¬
haps you have seen men driving posts in the sand
with a large machine. Your toy probably does
not work like the machine men use. Instead of
using a steam engine to make it go you turn the
crank by hand. As in the toy tire engine and the
steam shovel the windlass is used. In your toy
the weight is lifted six or more inches and then
dropped. Again it is picked up and lifted by the
windlass.
The windlass was used long ago to lift water in
large buckets from the wells. A rope was fas-
188 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Courtesy of Moline Pressed Steel Co.

THE CRANK OF THE TOY PILE DRIVER IS TURNED BY HAND.

tened to the bucket and to the windlass. As the

crank was turned, the rope was wound on the
windlass and the bucket lifted from the bottom of
 OUR TOYS AND OTHER MACHINES 189

the well. It was much easier to turn the crank and

lift the bucket than to pull it up with the hands.

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Some of these sentences are true. Some are not true.

On a piece of paper write the number of each sentence.
If it is true, write Yes beside each number. If it is
false, write No.
1. The lever is a simple machine.
2. The toy dump truck has levers.
3. A boy lifting sand to his toy dump truck is doing
work.
4. The elevator had stopped at the second floor but
it was doing work.
5. We never do work while playing.
6. The nutcracker is a lever.
7. The wheelbarrow is not used as a lever.
8. A small boy cannot lift a heavier boy on the
teeter-totter.
9. The wheel and axle is used to steer the auto¬
mobile.
10. The windlass is a complicated machine.

SOME THINGS TO DO

Try to crack an English walnut with your fingers.

Then use the nutcracker.
If you have a see-saw on the playground try the ex¬
periment suggested in this chapter.
You can easily make a little see-saw by using a ruler
or yardstick. Make a block of wood for the fulcrum.
Bring a toy dump truck to school and look for the
levers. What is the use of each lever you find ?
190 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
Look at the steering wheel of the toy dump truck.
Then tell the class how it works.
Look for examples of the wheel and axle in your toys
and about your school and your home. How are they
used for work? How are they used for play?
 CHAPTER XXI
HOW ROCKS WERE MADE

1. Describe some of the different kinds of rocks that

are found in your neighborhood.
2. Do you know the names of any of them ?
3. Can you scratch all rocks with a knife?

No matter where you dig you will always find

a rock bottom if you dig far enough. Scientists
tell us that at one time the surface of the earth
was solid rock. They say that once upon a time,
millions of years ago, the whole earth was hot
lava, steam, and fire. Do you know that lava is
melted rock? As the lava on the surface cooled,
it formed a crust or layer of rock. The outside
of this layer has since crumbled into soil, but
under the soil, the solid rock remains.
Lava immediately makes us think of volcanoes.
Pew of us have ever seen a volcano, but we have
all read of the smoke and flame and molten lava
that pour out of the great openings in the earth.
Sometimes lava covers the ground for miles in
all directions.
It may be hard for you to believe that granite
and some of the other rocks were once molten
lava. When lava cools and hardens, it forms
igneous rock. The word igneous comes from a
Latin word, ignis, that means fire. Igneous, or
191
192 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

•Photograph by Ewing Galloway, N. Y.

SMOKE, FLAME AND MOLTEN LAVA POUR OUT OF A VOLCANO.

fire-formed rocks, are very hard. They are of

various colors, according to the kind of mineral
in the lava.
Perhaps you would like to learn the names of
some of these minerals. Granite is made of
quartz, feldspar, and mica. Sometimes they are
so well mixed that they cannot he recognized. In
coarse granite, however, you can see the white
glass-like crystals of quartz very easily. The
mica appears as black particles, while the feldspar
may be red, pink, gray, or nearly white. It is the
feldspar that gives the stone its color.
Have you ever seen a piece of granite? It is
the strongest and most lasting of building stones.
 HOW ROCKS WERE MADE 193

FLOW OF LAVA FROM AN HAWAIIAN VOLCANO.

It is very expensive because it is so hard to split

and prepare for use. You may have seen monu¬
ments or parts of public buildings that were made
from it. It is found in more than half of the
states of our country. Many large granite quar¬
ries are found in the New England States.
You must not think, however, that fire did all
the work of forming the rocks. Did you ever pick
up a handful of pebbles by the side of a lake or
a river, or at the seashore? If you thought about
them at all, you probably noticed that their sur-
194 ELEMENTAKY SCIENCE

GRANITE, SHOWING THE WHITE

GLASS-LIKE CRYSTALS OF
QUARTZ.

faces were smooth, and guessed that the water

had worn them away. «/

As the earth’s surface cooled, it wrinkled some¬

what as the surface of an apple does when it
dries. When this happened, the layers of rock
were bent and broken. In the low places water
collected, forming lakes and oceans, streams and
rivers.
Some of the water ran down into cracks in the
earth, where it was heated and formed into steam,
as the water in a kettle does when it is heated on
the stove. This hot water dissolved some of the
 HOW EOCKS WEEE MADE 195
minerals in the rock, just as sugar dissolves in
water. After a while, the pressure of the steam
caused the water to rush out from the earth as hot
springs. The melted minerals in the steaming
water were left on the surface of the earth, where
they cooled and formed rocks.
Often igneous rock was worn away by water
and the particles deposited in other places to

A SPECIMEN OF CONGLOMERATE, OR
CEMENTED GRAVEL.

harden again. This washing away was not all

done by hot water. Wherever streams were
formed on the earth’s surface, they carry with
them small pieces of the rock over which they
pass, sometimes in the form of sand or gravel,
and sometimes in still smaller particles, which
made the water muddy.
If you take some muddy water from a running
stream and allow it to stand quietly in a glass,
196 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Courtesy of 77. S. Biological Survey

LAYERS OF SEDIMENTARY ROCK, SANDSTONE AND SHALE.

you will see that the water at the top becomes

clear as the solid particles settle to the bottom
of the glass. These settlings are called sediment.
When a muddy stream empties into a lake or an
ocean, the sediment settles in the bottom. After a
long time the particles become cemented together,
forming sedimentary rocks. Deep layers of sedi¬
mentary rocks have been formed in many places
on the earth’s surface. Some of them are shale,
or cemented mud; others are sandstone, or ce¬
mented sand; others are conglomerate, or
cemented gravel.
Sandstone is used very often as building stone
 HOW ROCKS WERE MADE 197

LIMESTONE FOSSILS, SHOWING IMPRINTS OF SMALL WATER

CREATURES.

in regions where it is found. It is much softer

than granite, and is therefore much more easily
prepared for use. Because it is soft and porous,
it wears away readily and for this reason build¬
ings made of it often look old in a very short
time.
Limestone is a sedimentary rock that has in
it lime from the shells of small water creatures
198 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
that died and sank to the bottom. Here they were
covered with other deposits and pressed into rock.
If you live in a neighborhood where there are
deposits of limestone, perhaps you will wonder
how they happened to be there. Wherever there
is limestone, the land was once covered with water.
This may seem hard for you to believe, but in any
limestone quarry you will find the remains of the
shells of sea animals. These remains are called
fossils. The ocean once covered the dry land and
sea animals lived wherever limestone fossils are
found.
Coal is another sedimentary rock. It is the
remains of plants that once grew in great swamps.
Some great change in the earth’s surface covered
these plants with layers of rock. The pressure on
these layers on the earth changed them into coal.
At the same time the mud in the swamp became
shale.
Sedimentary rock, as you have just learned, is
made from igneous rock by the action of water.
Sometimes sedimentary rock undergoes another
change and becomes what scientists call metamor-
phic rock, which means “changed rock.”
There are places on the earth where a great
sheet of lava has covered a layer of sedimentary
rock. The hot lava has melted the sedimentarv 1/

rock and changed it to other kinds of rocks. Lime¬

stone changes to marble. Soft coal becomes hard
coal or perhaps changes to graphite, a substance
with which you are surely familiar. It forms the
lead of your pencil. Shale becomes slate. Slate
 HOW ROCKS WERE MADE 199

SOFT COAL. HARD COAL.

is found in hard coal mines. All of these rocks

were once sedimentary rocks.
Marble is one of the most beautiful of all build¬
ing stones. Because of its scarcity and its high
cost, it is used mainly for ornamental purposes in
public buildings and for statues. Over half of
the marble used in this country comes from Ver¬
mont, where a great layer of it, from 1,000 to 2,000
feet in thickness, runs the whole length of the
state. We also get beautiful marble from Italy.

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Using the following words, fill the blanks in the sen¬

tences on the following page. Some of the words will
be used in more than one sentence.

feldspar limestone quartz water

igneous metamorphic sedimentary molten lava
lime mica soft coal
200 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
1. Granite is an.rock.
2. Granite was once.
3. Granite has in it. and .
4. Sandstone is a.rock.
5. Limestone is a.rock.
6. Limestone contains.from the shells of water
animals.
7. Wherever limestone is found, the land was once
covered with.
8. Marble was made from.
9. Graphite was made from.

SOME THINGS TO DO

If possible, collect samples of granite, sandstone, lime¬

stone, soft coal, hard coal, and marble and study them.
Try to know the quartz, mica, and feldspar in a piece
of granite.
Visit a running stream and observe the sediment that
it carries. Notice how pebbles and bits of rock are
rolled along on the bed of the stream.
Fill a glass jar with muddy water and watch the sedi¬
ment settle to the bottom, leaving the water clear.
Collect samples of the different kinds of rocks in your
neighborhood and find out as much as you can about
them.
 CHAPTEE XXII
HOW ROCKS BECOME SOIL

1. Have you ever seen a steep hillside where rock was

crumbling and falling down ?
2. Can you think of any reasons why rocks crumble
into soil?
3. Is all the soil in your neighborhood alike in color ?

The story of how the soil is formed begins with

the crumbling of the rocks that once were the
earth’s surface. There was a time, long, long ago,
when the earth was not covered with soil, as it is
now. Its surface was solid rock. In the last chap¬
ter you learned something of how these rocks were
formed. In this chapter you will learn what
caused the surface rock to crumble into soil.
You must not think, however, that soil is not
now being formed. If you will examine the soil
when you are out-of-doors, no doubt you will see
some rocks being changed into soil right in your
own neighborhood.
Did you ever try to pick up what looked like
a piece of stone and have it crumble in your
hands ? If you have had this experience, no doubt
you wondered what had softened the hard rock.
Such a change as that which had taken place in
the rock is known as weathering. Weathering is
brought about largely through the work of air,
201
202 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

WATER AND WIND CAN CUT ROCK AWAY TO FORM SOIL.

water, and changes in temperature, from hot to

cold and from cold to hot.
No doubt you have seen a piece of iron rusted
from being in moist air. Iron, as you know, is a
very hard substance, but iron rust is so soft that
it will rub off on your hand. When a piece of
iron is rusted through it will crumble, just as the
rock did that you picked up. Many rocks contain
iron, and there are other substances in them, too,
that are “weathered” by water, leaving the rock
 HOW ROCKS BECOME SOIL

WATER FREEZING IN THE CRACKS OF ROCKS SPLITS THEM TO

PIECES.

soft and porous. Rock is said to be porous when

it lets water pass through it. Rain water takes up
carbon dioxide gas from the air, and this gas
with the water forms an acid. You have probably
seen acid in an automobile battery. The acid from
the mixture of carbon dioxide and water dissolves
substances out of rocks and helps to weather them.
Have you ever seen a bottle broken by freezing
water? If you have, perhaps you wondered why
it happened. The reason is that the ice takes up
more space than the water from which it was
formed. Water freezing in the cracks of rocks
splits them to pieces in the same wav that the ice
breaks the bottle. As the water in the crack
freezes, it expands and makes the crack larger.
In regions where freezing and thawing occur
many times during the winter, large rocks may
204 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
crumble when spring comes. Farmers often plow
their fields in the fall. Plowing sometimes un¬
covers rocks and brings them to the surface where
they crumble faster than they would under
ground. Can you think why?
If you have ever watched a stream or a. river,
you know that it gradually wears away the sur¬
face of the rocks over which it runs. Even clear
water dripping continuously upon one spot in a
hard rock will make a hole in it. The running
water of a stream usuallv carries with it soil,
pebbles and sometimes large stones, which are
rolled along on the bottom. These pebbles and
stones go tumbling along, rubbing against each
other, and slowly wearing themselves away. You
can easily imagine, too, that the soil and the stones
that are carried by a stream help to wear away the
surface of the rocks over which it runs.
Did you ever learn what causes a waterfall?
Some rocks are softer than others, and are, there¬
fore, more easily worn away by running water.
As a stream passes from a bed of hard rock to
one that is softer, which may be washed away,
a waterfall is formed. Niagara Palls was formed
where the Niagara River passed from a bed of
hard limestone to a bed of softer rock. You will
be interested to learn that the water at Niagara
Falls is cutting its way back through the lime¬
stone at the rate of about four and one-half feet
each year.
Glaciers have also worn down rocks. A glacier
is a sheet of snow and ice that moves over
A STREAM PASSING FROM A BED OF HARD ROCK TO ONE THAT
IS SOFTER WEARS AWAY THE SOFTER ROCK, FORMING A
WATERFALL.
206 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

GLACIERS CREEP SLOWLY DOWN MOUNTAIN SIDES, CRUSHING

THE ROCKS OVER WTHICH THEY PASS.

the surface of the earth. Have you ever seen a

picture of a glacier? Thousands of years ago
a great glacier moved down from the far north
until it covered the northern part of the United
States. As it moved along, it crushed many of
the rocks over which it passed, and scoured and
scratched the surface of others. Some of the
scratches made by the great glacier can still be
seen. Quantities of soil and of rock were carried
along by the ice sheet to places many miles away.
Glaciers are frequently formed on high mountains.
They creep slowly down the mountain sides,
crushing the rocks over which they pass. Every
spring small sheets of ice and snow slide down
 HOW ROCKS BECOME SOIL 207

hillsides and along river valleys. Many of them

are not large enough to he called glaciers, but they
help to grind the rocks on the earth’s surface into
soil.
Even the wind helps to wear away the surface
of rock against which it blows. Like running-
water in the stream, the wind will crumble the
rock more easily if the moving air carries with it
particles of sand. Strong winds help to tear down
the cracked and broken rock surfaces of cliffs
against which they blow. Probably you have seen
men clean stone buildings by blowing sand against
them.
Have you ever seen plants growing right on
bare rock! Lichens are simple, rootless plants
that stick to the surfaces of rocks. There are
lichens of different colors—brown, orange, blue,
scarlet, gray, yellow, or white. If you have never
noticed them, you can probably do so on your
way home from school for they grow almost every¬
where from mountain tops to seashore, and from
the equator to the frigid zone. They look almost
like thin cushions on the rock surface.
Lichens are the plants that grow most easily.
They grow on rocks so hard that no other plant
could find a foothold on them. As they grow, they
give off a liquid that in time causes the rock to
begin to crumble. In this manner they prepare
the way for other plants.
The growing roots of the larger plants push
their way into the cracks of rocks, widening them
much as freezing water does. The juices of the
208 ELEMENTAEY SCIENCE

LICHENS AEE SIMPLE ROOTLESS PLANTS THAT GROW ON THE

SURFACE OF ROCKS.

plant help along the crumbling by taking away

certain substances from the rocks into which the
rootlets have grown.
You must not think, however, that soil is made
up altogether of crumbled rock, or “rock flour,”
as it is sometimes called. Fertile soil is a mixture
of a number of substances. In addition to ‘ ‘ rock
flour,” it must contain humus, a black or brown
substance that is made up of decaying plants. You
will learn more about humus in another chapter.
 HOW ROCKS BECOME SOIL 209

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

1. How does water help to cause rocks to crumble

into soil?
2. How does the air help to form soil ?
3. How do changes in temperature help to form the
soil?
4. What causes waterfalls?
5. Tell how the great glacier that covered a part of
North America helped in soil formation.
6. Explain how lichens prepare the way for other
plant life.

SOME THINGS TO DO

Examine some soil under a magnifying or reading

glass. Can you see that it is made up of bits of rock?
Find rocks that show the result of weathering. If
possible, find some that seem almost ready to crumble
into soil.
Crush them, using a hammer if necessary. How does
the rock flour that you have made differ from the soil
in your neighborhood ?
Crush enough rock so that you can fill a small flower
pot with rock flour. Fill a similar flower pot with soil
from your garden. Plant some of the same kind of
seeds in each, and compare the growth of the plants.
 CHAPTER XXIII
SAND, CLAY, AND LOAM

1. Describe some of the different kinds of soil that you

can find in your neighborhood.
2. What has caused the differences that you notice ?
3. Have you ever made marbles out of clay?

If you will look about you, you will discover that

all soil is not alike. Perhaps sometime you have
played in the light, fine sand on the beach of a
lake or an ocean. If you have, you know how sand
feels when you pick it up. If you were to examine
it under a microscope, you would find it made up
of grains that look almost like bits of glass. Sand
is usually composed of bits of quartz and feldspar.
Clay is very different from sand. It is made
up of very fine particles of rock. Perhaps you
have used clay for modeling. If you have, you
know that it is sticky and slippery when wet,
and that it becomes very hard when it dries. If
you have ever walked on wet clay, you know that
it sticks to your shoes and that it is very hard to
get off when it dries. Clay is used in the making
of pottery and bricks because it sticks together
and gets very hard when it dries. In the garden
clay is not so useful, as you will know if you have
ever cultivated a soil that had hard lumps in it.
Loam is another kind of soil and it consists of
210
 SAND, CLAY, AND LOAM 211

CLAY SOIL IS MADE UP OF VERY FINE PARTICLES

OF ROCK.

a mixture of clay, sand, and humus. It is the

best soil for growing plants. If there is more
clay than sand in the mixture, it is called a clay
loam. If there is more sand, it is a sandy loam.
Humus is a mixture of decayed plant and ani¬
mal matter. It serves as plant food, and also
makes spaces in the soil so that air and water
may enter freely. You recall that the earthworm
makes the soil porous. Both air and water are
important to the roots of the growing plant. You
can easily tell why plants do not grow well in
hard clay.
The roots of the plant cannot take in dry
food. Instead they absorb water in which is the
food they need for growth. From this you might
think that the best soil would be that which had
water standing in it and was therefore very wet.
If you have ever cared for a plant in a flower
pot, you know that this is not true. If water
 212 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

LOAM IS THE BEST KIND OF SOIL FOR GROWING

PLANTS.

stands in the soil, air is kept away from the roots

of the plants. For that reason plants in pots
should not be watered every day.
You know that water runs through sand very
quickly. A sandy loam dries out quickly and,
unless rains are very frequent, plants will not
grow well in it. A sandy soil holds little water,
for the particles are coarse. A clay loam holds
water well, and if it is rich in humus, the water
can sink into it and drain down through it easily.
However, a clay soil is difficult to cultivate, and it
packs in hard lumps into which the garden plants
cannot push their way. Then, also, it is a cold
soil, for water evaporates from the surface and
cools it. You may perhaps have felt how cool your
hand becomes when gasoline evaporates from it.
Garden plants grow best in a loam that has
considerable sand in it, for it is warmer than a
clay loam. The water sinks into it, you see, in-
 SAND, CLAY, AND LOAM 213

SAND DRIES OUT QUICKLY, THEREFORE PLANTS

DO NOT' GROW WELL IN IT.

stead of evaporating from the surface. It is not

so hard for plants to push their roots into a sandy
loam as it is into a clay loam where the particles
cling tightly together. Farm crops such as corn,
wheat, oats, and grass thrive on a loam that has
more clay in it.
Of course the sandy loam in your garden must
have humus added to it frequently. The plants
that grow in any soil take out the elements they
need to build into their bodies. Then, too, the
water which runs down through the sand so rap¬
idly carries some of the plant food with it down
beyond where the roots can reach it.
You learned in the first chapter about making
a compost heap by piling* manure and dead parts
of plants from the garden in layers and allowing
them to rot. This well decayed organic matter
can be mixed with the top soil when you spade
your garden in the spring.
214 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

SOIL RICH IN VEGETABLE MATTER TOGETHER

WITH CLAY OR SAND MAKES GOOD SOIL FOR
PLANTING.

Stable manure, alone, can be used to mix with

the soil, too, but the plants cannot use the organic
matter in it until it has decayed. The humus
which you add to a sandy soil helps it to hold more
moisture. That which you add to clay soil makes
it more porous so that the water can sink into it
instead of standing on the surface to evaporate
and cool the ground.
From this, you can see that whether your gar¬
den plot is clay or sandy loam, it is important
that you add humus to it. If you made a compost
heap last fall, you will be glad to have it to work
into your garden this spring.
 SAND, CLAY, AND LOAM 215

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Fill the blanks in the following: sentences with the

words: loam, clay, sand, sandy, humus.
1 .is made up of very fine particles of rock.
2 .consists of coarser particles of rock.
3 .is a mixture of clay, sand, and humus.
4 .is decayed plant and animal matter.
5. Water runs through . more quickly than
through .
6. A.loam is colder than a.loam because
more water evaporates from the surface.
7..is slippery and sticky when wet.
8. A.loam is harder to cultivate than a.
loam.

SOME THINGS TO DO

Bring some sand and some clay into the classroom to

study. Put some of the clay into a small flower pot, and
some sand in another. Add water to both, and notice
how much longer it takes for the water to drain through
the clay. Set both flowTer pots in the sun. When the
water has disappeared from the surface, test the tem¬
perature of each soil with a thermometer.
Get some sandy loam and some clay loam. Test them
in the same way.
Collect samples of soil from different places in your
neighborhood. Put them in small glass bottles. Label
them—sand, clay, sandy loam, or clay loam.
 CHAPTER XXIV

KEEPING SOIL GOOD FOR PLANTS

1. "What does a gardener mean when he says that the

soil in his garden is worn out?
2. What is a fertilizer?
3. What is meant by crop rotation ?

Scientists who have studied plant life have

found that plants need fourteen different kinds
of things to live. Every plant does not need all
fourteen of them, however, and the different
plants require different mixtures of them. Three
of the most important of these things or elements,
as they are called, are supplied by the air and
the water. They are gases known as carbon,
hydrogen, and oxygen. The other elements must
he obtained from the soil.
When a gardener says that the soil in his
garden is worn out he means that some element
needed by his garden plants is not there. Soil
may be worn out because it lacks one of the ele¬
ments that the plant needs.
Of all the elements that the growing plant gets
from the soil, only four are likely to he used up.
The others generally remain in the soil. The
four that are used more have difficult names.
They are called nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus,
and calcium. You can buy fertilizers that con¬
tain these elements.
216
 KEEPING SOIL GOOD FOR PLANTS 217

A fertilizer is any substance that helps to in¬

crease the supply of plant materials in the soil.
You have already learned something of the use
of manure and the decayed parts of garden plants
to make the soil richer. These are the most com¬
monly used fertilizers, but you can buy fertilizers
that contain the things needed for plants to grow.
Have you ever seen sacks of lawn fertilizer?
As you know, the plant can never use dry food.
The roots can take in only the food that is in the
water of the soil. Manures must decay before
they will supply usable plant food. Before adding
fertilizer to the soil, however, you must know
what is missing in the soil to make the plants
grow. Fertilizers that are made for sale usually
have only one kind of plant food. Natural fer¬
tilizers, such as stable manures and compost
heaps, have different kinds of plant food and can
be used for almost any plant need. If you are
not careful you can put too much of one kind
of food in the soil, and do more harm than good.
Nitrogen, for instance, is a leaf builder. Let¬
tuce, spinach, cabbage, and other crops grown
for their leaves need a large amount of nitro¬
gen. Crops grown for their roots and seeds need
less nitrogen, and if you were to add a nitrogen
fertilizer in large amounts to the soil in which
these crops grow, you would probably find that
the plants developed large leaves, and that the
other parts would be small. Have you ever heard
a gardener say that some of his root crops all
grew up to tops? He meant that the plants de-
218 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
veloped many leaves, but the roots were small.
This would be good if the leaves were the part
that you wished to use, but you would not like it
so well if you were raising a crop of turnips
or carrots.
Nitrogen is one of the gases that are found in
the air. You would think that the garden plants,
therefore, would have no difficulty in getting as
much as they need-. They take in carbon dioxide
from the air, you know, and use it in building
their bodies, but they are not able to take in nitro¬
gen in the same way. They must get it combined
with other elements.
There is one class of plants known as the le¬
gumes that take nitrogen from the air and unite
it with other elements into a form that other
plants can use. Peas and beans are legumes, and
so are clover and alfalfa. In a later chapter in
this book, you will learn that it is not the legumes
that take nitrogen from the air, but something
inside small knobs on their roots. Probably you
have already heard it said that clover enriches
the soil. If you examine clover roots you will
find small knobs in them that contain the nitrogen.
If peas and beans are raised on a part of your
garden, the soil there will be pretty sure to have
enough nitrogen in it for spinach and other leaf
crops the next year, particularly if the legumes
are allowed to decay and are spaded into the soil.
In making your garden plans, you should not
plant the same crops in the same rows year
after year. The farmer changes the crops that
 Courtesy of TJ. S. Department of Agriculture
CLOVER ROOTS HAVE SMALL KNOBS THAT CONTAIN
NITROGEN.

(
[:
220 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

THIS PICTURE SHOWS THE EFFECT OF THE ABSENCE OF ANY

OF THE THREE ELEMENTS, NITROGEN, POTASSIUM AND PHOS¬
PHORUS. THE PLANT IN THE JAR CONTAINING THE THREE
ELEMENTS HAS GROWN NORMALLY.

he plants in his fields season after season. He

calls this crop rotation. ‘You know, of course,
that to rotate is to go around something. Some
farms in the south that have been used to raise
tobacco year after year have become very poor
in the plant food needed for that crop. Many
of the southern farmers are now learning to raise
different crops on the same soil every year. The
soil where tobacco has been raised is worn out
for tobacco, you see.
Nitrogen may be bought in the form of nitrate
of soda. It is also found in dried blood, ground
fish, tankage, bone meal, and cotton-seed meal,
all of which may be bought for use as fertilizers.
If you see the leaves of plants turning yellow
 KEEPING SOIL GOOD FOE PLANTS 221

before it is time to harvest the crop, this is a

good sign that nitrogen is needed. Any of the
fertilizers mentioned above may be used, but ni-
trate of soda will probably give you the quickest
results. The fertilizers that supply nitrogen
should always be applied in very small quanti¬
ties, otherwise the plants are apt to die.
If phosphorus is lacking in the soil, fruits will
not develop well on the plants. Phosphoric acid is
a compound of phosphorus that is found in
fruits, and so of course is needed for their
growth. Many commercial fertilizers contain
phosphorus, among which are bone meal and rock
phosphate.
Potash, which contains potassium, is the builder
of fibers in plants. It is needed by all plants, but
is required in large quantities by the root crops
—turnips, carrots, parsnips, and radishes. The
cheapest source of potash is wood ashes. Potash
is the part of the fiber of the tree that does not
burn, and is left as ashes. Sometimes wood
ashes with a little poison is dusted on plants to
kill insect pests. At the same time, the ashes
enrich the ground.
Soil often contains too much acid for plants to
grow in it. Litmus, a dye that is sold on strips
of colored paper, is used to test the soil. Moist
soil having acid turns the blue litmus paper pink.
If the soil is acid, lime may be added to it in
small quantities and this helps the plants to grow
better.
Of all the fertilizers that you might use, stable
222 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
manure is the safest, and is often the one that
can be had more easily. Fertilizers that are sold
in stores often show had effects if they are not t/

applied well, while stable manure may be added to

the garden year after year. It contains many dif¬
ferent kinds of plant food; it makes clay more
porous so that water can sink into it, and it makes
sandy loam hold water better.

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Some of these sentences are true. Some are not true.

On a piece of paper write the number of each sentence.
If it is true, write Yes beside the number. If it is false,
write No.
1. Any kind of commercial fertilizer is good for any
kind of soil.
2. Potash is found in wood ashes.
3. Bone meal contains both phosphorus and nitrogen.
4. Nitrogen is found in the air.
5. It is best to plant the same crops on the same soil
year after year.
6. It is a good thing to add lime to acid soil.
7. Potash is the fiber builder in plants.

SOME THINGS TO DO

Collect samples of as many kinds as possible of

fertilizers that are sold in the stores.
Experiment with them by adding them to soil and
growing different plants in it.
Different members of your class may think up prob¬
lems that you may solve for yourselves in this way. For
example, it will be interesting, too, to watch the results
 KEEPING SOIL GOOD FOR PLANTS 223

of applying fertilizers bought in the stores, in different

amounts. You could work out your problems using
small sections of the garden, a window box, or flower
pots.
 CHAPTER XXV

PLANNING YOUR GARDEN

1. Do you expect to have a garden of your own this

year?
2. If so, what is the size of it?
3. If not, would you enjoy making a plan for a garden
that you might have some day?

There are many kinds of gardens. In the coun¬

try and in small towns, almost every family has
a garden that supplies them with vegetables for
the table. In crowded sections of the city, where
there are neither backyards nor vacant lots,
plants may be grown on roofs, on porches, or
on window boxes. In such locations, flowers are
more often grown than vegetables.
Whether your plot of ground is large or small,
the first step in gardening is to make a plan.
This should be made during the winter or in the
very early spring, so that by the time you can
work in the garden, the plan is completed.
If your vegetable plot is small, you will no
doubt wish to raise such crops as radishes, let¬
tuce, and spinach, but if you have a larger space,
you may decide to plant corn and potatoes as
well. In planning, you must take into account
the size of your particular garden.
You will need to consider, too, the kind of soil
224
 PLANNING YOUR GARDEN 225

in your plot and how much sunshine your plants

will get, in order to select crops that will grow
there. To make a good plan, you must know the
best time for planting each crop, and the length
of the growing season needed for each. This in¬
formation is very important if the plot is small,
since you will no doubt want to use the ground
more than once by planting early crops that grow
rapidly followed by others to be harvested at the
end of the season.
A few good seed catalogues will help you in
making your garden plan. Many of them advise
you as to the time for planting the different kinds
of seeds. Some catalogues tell also the time re¬
quired for the crop to grow, and how far apart
the rows should be.
Sometimes gardeners speak of the garden
plants that may be started as soon as the ground
is ready to work in the spring, as the cool-sea¬
son crops. Leaf lettuce, early peas, kohl-rabi,
cress, radishes, early spinach, and early beets are
cool-season crops that are full grown in a short
time, and can be replaced by others that grow
better later in the season. Among the latter are
the late peas and beans, cucumbers, muskmelons,
watermelons, squash, lima beans, and okra.
Head lettuce, cauliflower, cabbages, and toma¬
toes should be started early, but they can not be
harvested in time to put another crop in their
places. Since the plants for these crops are
started indoors and are not set into the garden
until the weather is warm, it is possible to raise
226 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

ASTERS , COSMOS, ano GOLDENGLOW

HOLLYHOCKS a*d SAL I/IA

SNAPDRAGONS , LARKSPUR, and ZINNIAS

SWEET ALYS5UM or PANSIES

YOU MAY WANT A BORDER OF FLOWERS IN YOUR GARDEN.

a crop of radishes or lettuce first on the plot

that they are to occupy.
The roots of some plants become strong dur¬
ing the cool moist spring, hut are not full grown
until late summer or autumn. Among these are
carrots, parsnips, and beets.
Perhaps you will want a border of flowers in
your garden. There are many from which you
may choose. You will want the tallest plants for
a background—asters, cosmos, and goldenglow,
probably. In front of these you may want a row
of dahlias or some hollyhocks. If you decide
upon the hollyhocks, you might plant some salvia
among them. After the hollyhocks have stopped
blooming, they may he cut down to make room
for the salvia, which will he beautiful in the au¬
tumn. You may want some poppies, mignonette,
snapdragons, calendulas, larkspur, marigolds, or
zinnias. In the foreground, a row of smaller
 PLANNING YOUR GARDEN 227

plants may be grown—pansies or nasturtiums.

In planning the border you should think of the
colors, as well as the kinds of flowers, and plan
so that the colors Avill go well together. You can
be helped in your planning by studying the seed
catalogues, many of which have colored illustra¬
tions. Notice that many of the garden flowers
are perennials that will come up again season
after season, and think of this in making your
plan.
If you are to have a garden it will be well for
you to measure your plot and draw a diagram
of it as you would like to have it. If you do not
have a garden now, probably you would find it
interesting to plan one that you would like to
have some day. .
The plan shown here will help you, but you
will not want to make one exactly like it. You
must decide first what crops you wish to have
and then make your plan to fit your own needs.
The time for planting is not the same in all sec¬
tions of the country. The seed catalogue, if put
up in the part of the country where you live,
will give you useful information. You can learn
more, however, by talking to some successful gar¬
dener in your own neighborhood.
Your diagram will not only help as a guide in
planting your garden, but it will also be a record
that will help you in your planning next year.
If this is your first year of gardening, you will
make some mistakes. Perhaps you will find that
some crops will not grow in your plot, or that
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TOMNTOES FOLLOWED BY SP/NNCN

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CUCUMBERS FOLLOWED BY TURNIPS-

MUSNMELONS OR S0UN5Nfollowed by TURN/PS

\ENRLV POTATOES FOLLOWED BY FNLL EERNS

SWEET CORN FOLLOWED BYFNLL PEPS

SO'
CROP ROTATION PLAN FOR VEGETABLE GARDEN.
 PLANNING YOUR GARDEN 229
some of your early vegetables were not ready to
harvest in time to grow another crop, as you had
planned. These are but a few of the many things
about gardening that you will learn by experi¬
ence. Indeed, you will find that learning by
doing is one of the most interesting results of
having a garden.

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

1. Name the vegetables that are raised in the gardens

in your neighborhood.
2. From the seed catalogues, find the names of as
many other vegetables as you can.
3. Which of these do you think would grow1 in your
garden ?
4. Name the garden flowers that are grown in your
neighborhood.
5. Make a list of others that you would like to try to
raise.

SOME THINGS TO DO

Collect seed catalogues, and make a plan for a garden.

If you can get a plot of ground, make a school garden.
This can be planned for a group, while each member of
the class may plan his own home garden.
It is best to draw your garden diagram to scale. You
have probably drawn maps to scale, so you will know
how this should be done.
 CHAPTER XXVI

PLANTING THE SCHOOL GARDEN

1. How is the soil in the garden prepared for the plant¬

ing of the seeds?
2. Have you ever raised plants indoors to be trans¬
planted to the garden?
3. Describe a hotbed.

If you have ever helped to make a school gar¬

den you know that it is very much like the garden
that you will probably have in your backyard at
home. Usually a school garden allows a plot
about four feet wide and eleven feet long for
each child. Each hoy and girl is allowed to plan
his own garden and plant it when the right time
comes. Many of the ideas about gardening that
you will gain from this chapter apply equally to
a school or a home garden.
A few simple garden tools are necessary to do
the garden work. The spade and fork are used
for digging in the ground. Some people use the
spade, and others prefer the fork. The fork is
also used to harvest such crops as potatoes which
grow under the ground. For this reason, it is
sometimes called the potato fork.
The garden rake has many uses. After the
ground is spaded, the rake is used to break up
230
 PLANTING THE SCHOOL GARDEN 231

Photograph by Ewing Galloway, N. Y.

USUALLY A SCHOOL GARDEN ALLOWS A PLOT FOUR FEET BY

ELEVEN FEET FOR EACH CHILD.

clods and to prepare the seed bed. It is also

used to make rows for planting.
Perhaps you are already familiar with the hoe.
There are several kinds of hoes, each of which
has its special use, but the common hoe is most
helpful for work in the garden. It is useful in
planting, weeding, and cultivating.
To make straight rows you will need a line and
stakes. Ordinary string will serve for the line,
and pieces of hoard about one inch square and
two feet long can be used for stakes.
A trowel is used in transplanting cabbages, to-
232 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

THE BIGHT WAY TO SPADE. IN THIS POSITION THE FORCE

OF THE WHOLE BODY GOES IN THE OPERATION.

matoes, and other plants, and in making rows

for very small seeds. The kind most commonly
used has a curved blade about five inches long.
A watering-pot which holds about two gallons
will be useful to water plants and to spray the
leaves of potatoes and cucumbers with Paris
green or arsenate of lead.
There are other garden tools which you may
use, but these are the most essential. It is im¬
portant to buy a good grade of tools and to keep
them in good condition. A few simple tools well
cared for will be a source of pleasure while work¬
ing in the garden.
 PLANTING THE SCHOOL GARDEN 233

THE WRONG WAY TO SPADE. THIS METHOD IS TIRESOME

AND DEVELOPS SERIOUS PAIN IN THE INSTEP.

First of all, of course, you must prepare your

garden for planting, whether it is at home or at
school. Large gardens are usually plowed, but
plots that are too small for the horse and plow
to move about in are spaded instead. While spad¬
ing a garden is a difficult task, it is the best pos¬
sible way of preparing the soil.
Gardens are sometimes spaded in the fall, and
sometimes in the early spring. Occasionally a
garden may be plowed in the fall, and then spaded
in the spring. Of course you will want to begin
working the soil of your garden as early as pos¬
sible, but you must wait until the soil is ready.
234 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
It should not be so wet that it will cake or cling
together in lumps; instead, it shoidd fall loosely
apart when you strike it with your spade.
One good way to spade is to lift the soil with
the spade, turn it over, and drop it again in the
same place, breaking the large lumps and clods
by striking them with the spade. In England a
method known as trenching i§ used, hut that is
rarely done here. While you are spading, remem¬
ber that the soil should he made fine, not only
on the surface but from eight to ten inches in
depth before planting. You must be ready to give
plenty of time and hard work to the soil. It is
on the proper preparation of the soil that the
success of a garden depends.
Unless the soil of your garden is already rich
in humus, it is a good plan to add manure. This
can be done by spreading manure on the surface
of the ground before you start to spade, and then
working it into the ground as you go along.
Other fertilizers may be added at this time, too.
Do you recall the different kinds that may he
used?
The nest step is to work the soil thoroughly in
order to break up the lumps that were not broken
by the spade. You will probably use a hoe and
a rake for this purpose. Remember that the good
gardener makes sure that his soil is fine and
porous before he plants a single seed.
Your plan has been made before you start to
spade your garden, so when you have completed
your preparation of the soil you are ready to begin
 PLANTING THE SCHOOL GARDEN 235

DO ITS SHARE OF THE WORK AND THE ARMS HAVE PERFECT

CONTROL OF THE RAKE.

planting. Some seeds can be planted right in

the garden. Other plants will have to be started
in the hotbed, or in boxes in the house or school¬
room since they require a long season in which to
grow and cannot stand the cold weather in the
early spring. Among these plants are cabbage
and tomato plants, which will have to be started
inside and transplanted later in the spring.
If you have no hotbed you may raise these
plants in a box, inside the house. Select a box
about three or four inches deep with holes drilled
in the bottom for drainage.
236 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

THE WRONG WAY TO HOLD THE RAKE WHILE RAKING THE

SOIL. NOTICE THE POSITION OF THE HANDS.

Fill it with garden loam. Scatter the seed on

the surface, covering it to its own depth by sift¬
ing a little soil over it. Water it well, but use
a tine spray. Do not flood the surface.
When the seedlings appear, the box should he
kept in the warm sunlight. If the plants seem
to be crowding each other before it is time to
set them into the garden, you may transfer them
to a larger box. You may wish, also, to start
summer squash, cucumbers, or beans in your in¬
door box so as to have an earlier crop of them.
While these plants will not stand transplanting as
well as your cabbages and tomatoes, you can man-
 PLANTING THE SCHOOL GARDEN 237

THE RIGHT WAY TO LEAVE THE RAKE AND HOE WHEN NOT
IN USE.
■

age it by raising them in single strawberry boxes,

from which you can remove the sides and bottom
when you wish to transfer the plant into the gar¬
den. In that way you need not disturb the roots
at all.
It is interesting to raise your own plants for
transplanting, but keep in mind that when you
want a small quantity of tomato or cabbages they
can easily be bought.
Plants should be watered thoroughly several
hours before they are to be transplanted, for
wet soil will stick to the roots better than dry
soil. Transplanting should be done on a cloudy
day or in the late afternoon. Holes are made
with the hand or the trowel in the garden soil.
The plants are lifted from the box or cold frame
with as much soil as will stick to the roots. They
are placed in the holes and the soil is packed
around them carefully. If the garden soil is dry,
water should be placed in the holes before the
plants are set into them.
The first seeds that you will probably sow will
be radish, lettuce, onions, smooth peas, early
spinach, and early beets. These may all be
238 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

THE WRONG WAY TO LEAVE THE RAKE AND HOE WHEN NOT
IN USE.

planted as soon as the soil is fit to work. Each

of these vegetables can stand cool weather and
plenty of rain, and both of these are common in
the spring. Another group of vegetables that
may be planted quite early are those known as
“long season crops”—carrots, parsnips, early po¬
tatoes, Swiss chard, parsley, and cabbage. These
grow well during the cool, moist spring, can stand
the heat of summer, and are full grown by the
summer or autumn.
Perhaps you like to have fresh radishes,
onions, and peas all summer long. You may have
them by planting your seeds a week or two apart,
so that you will always have peas or string beans
or radishes “coming on.” Of course you will
need to supply additional moisture for these crops
when you plant them in early summer instead of
spring. In the same way you may plant early
and late cabbage, and early and late beets. In
some sections of the country you may plant sweet
corn three times in July—on the first, on the fif¬
teenth, and on the thirtieth—which will allow a
long season in which to enjoy it.
Sweet corn is one of the vegetables that ma-
 PLANTING THE SCHOOL GARDEN 239

tures in a short, warm season. Others in this

group are cucumbers, string beans, muskmelons,
squash, and pumpkins, none of which can he
planted until the soil is warm. Another group of
hot weather vegetables includes tomatoes, egg¬
plants, peppers, and sweet potatoes. All of these
must he started in hotbeds, or indoor boxes, since
they take a long time to mature and cannot be
planted in cool weather. While a light frost does
not injure your early spring crops of radishes,
lettuce, onions, and early peas, it would kill your
small tomato plants if you set them out too early.
Lettuce is the most important garden crop for
salads, and fortunately, it grows in almost every
kind of soil. The ideal soil for it, particularly
for head lettuce, is a sandy soil rich in humus.
Leaf lettuce is sown right in the garden, but head
lettuce must he started indoors, or in a hotbed,
and transplanted to the garden after the soil is
warm. Like the cabbage and tomato, it cannot
stand cold weather. When you are setting out
head lettuce, give it plenty of room. The heads
should he about a foot apart each way. When the
leaves reach a length of six to eight inches, they
may be tied together at the top so that the inner
leaves will blanch.
Some kinds of vegetables grow tall and must
be supported. There are kinds of peas that will
grow best with a little chicken-wire to support
them. As your tomato plants grow tall, whittle
sticks about two feet long and push the sticks on
each side of the plant to hold it up.
240 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

TOMATOES GROW TALL AND MUST BE SUPPORTED WITH

STICKS AND WIRE.

It is unnecessary to give you here exact direc¬

tions for planting each of the different garden
crops, since on the packages in which you buy
your seed you will find these directions. It is im¬
portant that you follow them accurately. You
will find that even different kinds of the same
plant must he treated a bit differently. The direc¬
tions will give you hints about many things, such
as to plant your peas in a furrow six inches deep,
but to cover the seeds with not more than two
inches of loam. Perhaps you will not see the
reason for that, nor for many of the directions, but
when you think that peas must have plenty of
water, you will be willing to follow the directions
that come with every package of seeds.
Then, as you start work in your garden, begin
 PLANTING THE SCHOOL GARDEN 241
a garden diary. Keep a record of the tempera¬
ture in the morning, at noon, and at night. Make
a record of the planting of all seeds, whether in the
hotbed or in the garden, and of the date upon
which you did your transplanting. Later you will
be happy to record the harvesting of your crops.
Such a day-by-day record will not only make your
gardening more interesting, but it will help you
to plan your garden for next year. If you have
made mistakes, you will want to correct them in
your next garden. You will find it interesting to
talk over your gardening adventures with some¬
one else, and you are fortunate to have a school,
as well as a home garden.

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

1. In connection with your work on the last chapter,

you made a plan for a garden. Which of the
plants that you have planned to raise must he
planted indoors or in a hotbed, and transplanted
to the garden?
2. When should you plant the seeds for these plants ?
When should the plants be transplanted to the
garden ?
3. How can you tell when to spade the garden ?
4. From your garden plan, make a list of the dif¬
ferent plants, the seeds of which are planted right
in the garden. Tell how deep the seeds should be
planted, and how close together in the rows.
5. Which seeds should be planted in furrows ? Why ?
242 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

SOME THINGS TO DO

The most interesting things for yon to do in connec¬

tion with this chapter are suggested right in the chapter
itself.
Prepare the soil of your garden. Raise some cabbage,
tomato or other plants indoors to transplant to it. The
seeds for these should be planted about six weeks before
it is time to spade the garden.
Plant the seed for your crops, following the instruc¬
tions on the packages very carefully.
 CHAPTER XXVII

WEEDING, CULTIVATING, AND HARVESTING

1. Why is it necessary to cultivate a garden?

2. Name some of the garden vegetables, and tell when
they should be harvested.
3. Why are weeds harmful to the garden?

No doubt you have seen neglected gardens.

What a great disappointment they must have
been to their owners! When you have made a
plan, prepared the soil, and planted the seeds, you
have made a good start in gardening, but you
must remember that it is only a start.
As soon as the garden plants begin to come up,
weeds will also appear in your well-prepared beds.
You will soon learn to distinguish them from your
own seedlings by the difference in the shapes of
their leaves. Weeds usually grow faster than the
garden plants, and if you do not begin at once
to pull them out, they will soon crowd out your
crops.
Hoeing the garden kills the weeds by pulling
them up and exposing their roots to the air and
sunlight. It keeps the soil fine and the roots of
the plants can push their way into it. It also
helps the soil to hold the moisture that is so neces¬
sary to plant life. When the ground is cultivated,
a layer of mulch of fine soil is formed on the top.
243
 244 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
A layer of mulch is any layer protecting the soil.
This layer itself dries out very quickly, hut it
prevents the water in the soil below from evapo¬
rating as fast as it would evaporate otherwise.
If you live in the country, your garden will
have to depend for water upon the rains. If you
live in the city or in a village where you have a
city water supply, you can sprinkle your garden
in dry weather. It is important that the soil be
watered thoroughly every time, for it does very
little good to wet only the surface. It is a good
plan to take a trowel and dig down to see how
deeply the water has really sunk. You may think
sometimes that you have done quite a thorough
job of watering and then find that only the very
top of the soil is wet. It takes more than just
sprinkling to water a garden.
As you cultivate your garden, keep your eyes
open for insect pests and worms that may be
harmful to your flowers and vegetables. A great
many of the larger ones may be picked off by
hand. If there are too many or if they are too
hard to catch, you may have to supply yourself
with some liquid poison to use as a spray for your
plants, or some powder with which you can dust
them to protect them from their insect enemies.
Stores sell many preparations that may be used
for this purpose.
The cutworm is a bad enemy, since it works at
night underground. Often the first hint you have
of it may be a plant cut off in the morning. The
plant may be lying flat on the ground, or it may
 CULTIVATING AND HARVESTING 245

l
j:

i_i
Courtesy of U. S. Department of Agriculture
LIFE STORY OF A CUTWORM.

a: moth; b: caterpillar, side view; c: caterpillar in curved posi¬

tion; d: caterpillar, back; e: greatly enlarged egg; /: egg mass
on twig.

still be standing in its place, but if you examine

it, you will find that it lias been cut across just
below the surface of the earth. If you dig care¬
fully around the base of the injured plant and its
246 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Courtesy of U. S. Department of Agriculture

THE TOMATO WORM IS A STRANGE-LOOKING INSECT LARVA.

neighbor, you will probably find a fat, gray worm

about an inch long. It will curl up when it is
touched. You can kill the cutworms that you find,
but the difficulty is to locate them all. If you have
cutworms in your garden, it is a good plan to
protect your young cabbage and tomato plants
from them by wrapping the stems with paper.
Cutworms attack only young plants.
The tomato worm is a strange looking insect
larva. It is about four inches long, and is bright
green striped with white. It has a horn rising
from its tail, and jaws that snap when it is dis¬
turbed. In spite of its fierce appearance, it is
quite harmless to people, but it will eat the leaves
of your tomato plants if you do not destroy it.
Like the cabbage worm, of which you read in the
second chapter of this book, the tomato worm is
the larva of a moth.
You have learned how the florists grow large
chrysanthemums by picking off all but one of the
flower buds that groAv on a plant. If you wish
to grow large tomatoes, you can do so by picking
 CULTIVATING AND HARVESTING 247

off some of the smaller ones in each cluster.

The plant may he pruned, too, by cutting off
the branches that have no blossoms. This saves
its strength for the growing fruit. Cucumber
vines may be treated in the same manner.
You will have to learn just when your vege¬
tables are ready to pick, for they are not good to
eat if they are harvested too soon or if they are
left on the vines too long. Have you ever picked
sweet corn for the table? When the ears are
ready to use, the tassels turn brown. It is best
to pull back the husk a little to look in and make
sure, however, before you pick the ear. When
you pull off the ear, use both hands, grasping the
stalk as well as the ear. Pull the ear downward
and give it a little twist.
Summer squash must be picked while the skin
is still soft enough so that you can scratch it with
your thumb nail, but winter squash and pump¬
kins should remain on the vines until autumn.
Squashes should be cut off the vine with a knife.
If cucumbers are to be used for pickles, they
are usually picked when they are very small.
Remember that the vine is still growing, and cut
each tiny cucumber off with a sharp knife, so as
not to jerk the vine and injure it. Eor use in
salads, cucumbers must be full grown, and cut
from the vine while they are still dark green.
When they turn yellow they are too old for salads,
but they may be used for seeds.
Carrots are particularly delicious when young.
You may find that out some day accidentally,
248 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Photograph by Ewing Galloway, N. T.

THE JOY OF HARVESTING WILL FULLY REPAY FOR THE WORK

PUT IN A VEGETABLE GARDEN.

when yon are thinning your carrot rows, if you

wash off and nibble some of the tiny ones that you
have pulled to allow room for the others to grow.
To see whether carrots are ready, scratch away
 CULTIVATING AND HARVESTING 24!)

a little soil near the leaf stems. If you see a

little bald head, about three-quarters of an inch
in thickness, grasp the stem and pull the carrot
slowly from the ground. If you are too hasty
you will pull up several carrots at a time, and
not all of them will be large enough for use. You
must also pull up one or two beets and radishes
before harvesting them to find out whether they
are old enough to eat.
Peas are ready for use when the pods are full.
They should not be allowed to remain on the vine
until the pods are wrinkled and hard, unless you
wish to raise some seed. Green beans, too, should
be picked while the pods are crisp and before they
begin to turn brown.

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

1. Explain all the reasons for hoeing a garden.

2. Name the weeds that will probably come up in
your garden.
3. Name the insect enemies from which you must pro¬
tect your plants. Tell how you plan to do this.
4. Why do gardeners sometimes pick some of the
small green tomatoes off the vines ?
5. Explain how you can tell when each of the vege¬
tables that you have planned to raise in your gar¬
den is ready to harvest.

SOME THINGS TO DO

The most important thing to do is to take care of the

garden that you have planted—hoeing it, protecting it
250 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
from its insect enemies, and harvesting your crops when
they are ready.
Although you will no doubt agree that your pleasure
in raising the crops is the greatest return from your
garden, you will find it interesting to keep a record of
just what the garden has cost you and what it has pro¬
duced. The following form, which was prepared by the
Bureau of Education, Department of the Interior,
Washington, D. C., is suggested for your use. If many
of the members of your class have gardens, it might be
a good plan to have a meeting next fall to compare your
records. Notice that you are to use a separate blank
for each month.

HOME GARDEN MONTHLY REPORT1

Month. Year .

Name of Pupil.

Address (street and number)

Products Harvested

Amount Used Amount Money

Name of Crop
at Home Sold Value

i From Bulletin No. 40, 1916, “How Gardening May Be Pro¬

moted by the Schools,” Dept, of the Interior, Bureau of Education,
Washington, D. C.
CULTIVATING AND HARVESTING 251

Expenses

Quantity Articles Price Amount

Work

hours worked at cents per hour

 CHAPTER XXVIII

BIRD FRIENDS OF THE GARDEN

1. Can yon tell why the wrens are good neighbors?

2. How can you tell the swallows by their flight through
the air?
3. Name some of the birds that nest in your community,
but which migrate southward to spend the winters.

You have already read about some common

birds that help to rid the garden of weeds and
insect pests. You learned of some birds that are
permanent residents, spending the whole year in
one neighborhood. Many of the permanent resi¬
dents feed upon insects during the summer
months, and in the winter eat the seeds of weeds.
You learned of others that nest farther north, and
which migrate southward to spend their winters
with us.
Almost all of the winter birds are seed-eaters.
As you know, insects are very scarce during the
winter months. Some adult insects spend the
winter in warm, secluded spots, but the majority
of them exist through the winter in the form of
pupas or eggs. Some winter birds eat insect eggs,
and pupas, but these are not nearly so plentiful
as the seeds of weeds.
On a certain season flocks of sparrows and
juncos were seen day after day feeding upon
252
 BIRD FRIENDS 253

Photograph by Frank M. Chapman

SPARROWS AND JUNCOS ARE FRIENDS OF THE GARDEN.

smartweed seeds on a Maryland farm. The next

year the smartweed had almost disappeared from
the entire farm. The smartweed is an annual,
you see, and must grow each season from the
seeds, and the birds had eaten them.
The United States Department of Agriculture
in 1910 estimated that the sparrows of this coun¬
try saved the farmers more than $80,000,000 by
eating the seeds of troublesome plants.
How delighted we always are to see the birds
that spend the winters in the south return to us
each springtime! It is pleasant to watch them
building their nests and to hear their calls. These
summer birds are among the most useful of all
254 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Photograph from Bureau of Information, Salt Lake City, Utah

CARVED-BRONZE BASE OF SALT LAKE GULL MONUMENT COM¬
MEMORATING THE SAVING OF A CROP BY GULLS IN THE
PIONEER DAYS OF UTAH. THE CROP WOULD HAVE BEEN'
DESTROYED BY CRICKETS HAD NOT THE GULLS EATEN THE
INSECTS.

the feathered friends of the garden, since some

of them feed entirely upon insects.
It has been said that the descendants of one pair
 BIRD FRIENDS

of potato beetles would number more than 60,-

000,000 in a year, if none of them were killed.
The larvas of many insects eat large amounts of
food. A caterpillar in one day may eat twice its
own weight in leaves. It is indeed difficult to tell
the amount of damage done by insects, but one
man who studied the problem estimated that in
1921 more than 1,000,000,000 dollars’ worth of
forest and farm products were destroyed by in¬
sect pests. How much greater this damage would
have been had there been no birds to eat the in¬
sects !
In pioneer days in Utah, crickets once de¬
stroyed almost the entire crop. They appeared
again the next year, but before they had eaten
the second crop, great flocks of gulls appeared and
ate them. It was a great relief to the early set¬
tlers, for the railroads had not yet been built and
it would have been very difficult to get food, had
their second crop been lost.
The house wren is one of the gardener’s friends,
for it feeds upon grasshoppers, cutworms, beetles,
and other insects. This friendly little bird nests
near our homes in old tin cans, gourds, and other
suitable holes, or in bird houses if they are pro¬
vided. It builds a nest of twigs, lining it with
grass and feathers, and laying six to eight
speckled eggs in it. Like many of the other insect-
eating birds, it does not spend the entire year in
one community, but migrates southward to spend
the winter.
Perhaps you have seen swallows circling about
256 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

THE BARN SWALLOW MAY BE RECOGNIZED BY ITS DEEPLY

FORKED TAIL.

over ponds and meadows, flying for a long time

without stopping. Their long wings are very
useful to them, for they spend most of their time
 BIRD FRIENDS
in the air. They feed largely upon insects, which
they capture as they fly. They also eat cater¬
pillars, and a few weed seeds.
The barn swallow may be recognized by its
deeply forked tail and by its habit of flying low.
It builds its nest of mud on the rafters of barns
and sheds. It feeds upon beetles, ants, bugs, flies,
and other insects, which it captures in the air, and
it eats snails which it finds as it gets mud for its
nest.
There was a time, perhaps, when all of the swal¬
lows nested in rocky caves and cliffs, but four of
the seven kinds of swallows found in this country
now prefer nesting under the eaves or on the
rafters of buildings. There is one kind, the
bank swallow, that tunnels in the earth to make
its nesting place. It usually selects a bank of
earth by the side of a road or a river and tunnels
back into it for a distance of about two feet.
In such a protected spot it places its nest of grass
and feathers.
It is a great mistake to tear down the nests of
swallows from rafters or eaves, for these useful
birds should be encouraged in every possible way
to live in our neighborhoods. Instead, we should
cut a small hole in the gable of the barn to make
sure that they have an entrance. We may help
them, too, in their nest building by providing a
shelf for their nests. The purple martin, which is
a member of the swallow family, may be encour¬
aged to nest in the dooryard if a house is pro¬
vided. They prefer to live in colonies, and martin
258 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Courtesy of TJ. S. Biological Survey

THE BLUEBIRD EATS BEETLES, GRASSHOPPERS, AND CATER¬

PILLARS.

houses are usually planned with apartments for

a dozen or more families.
Many of the other summer birds, also, feed
upon insects. The bluebird eats beetles, grass¬
hoppers, and caterpillars. The wood thrush feeds
upon beetles, ants, caterpillars, and other insects.
The orioles, the cuckoos, and all of the warblers
are insect eaters. Some of them hunt their food
on the trunks and branches of trees, while others
go over the leaves and twigs.
 BIRD FRIENDS 259
Birds require more food for their size than we
do for ours. Many of them eat their own weight
in food each twenty-four hours. Think how many
insects, insect eggs, or weed seeds this would
mean. Do you see why it would be very difficult
for us to raise gardens at all without the help of
our feathered friends?

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

1. Name some birds that are permanent residents in

your community.
2. Name some birds that spend the winters in your
neighborhood, but which nest farther north.
3. Name some of the birds that nest in your locality,
but which migrate southward to spend the winters.
4. From what you have seen, what do you know about
the feeding habits of these birds?
5. Describe the nesting habits of the swallows.

SOME THINGS TO DO

Go to a pond or meadow and watch the swallows

circling about.
Take a trip to some barn to find swallow nests.
Make sketches in your science notebook of the bill of
a house wren and a barn swallow.
You will find it interesting to build some nesting
shelves for the swallows, or a bird house for one of the
other useful birds of your neighborhood. Farmers' Bul¬
letin No. 1456, published by the United States Depart¬
ment of Agriculture, Washington, D. C., is a useful
guide to bird-house construction.
 CHAPTER XXIX

SOME STRANGE PLANTS

1. What are the smallest plants yon know?

2. Have you ever seen germs ? Are there different kinds
of germs?
3. Is any of the germs a plant ?

Even if you should choose sides and have a

contest in naming plants, it is doubtful if any
one in your room would mention the plants that
you are going to read about in this chapter.
Some one would surely think of the rose, violet,
potato, and cabbage. Perhaps some one would
name the peach or the apple tree, and that would
be right, for they, too, are plants.
Suppose some one asked you to describe a plant.
You would probably say that it has flowers, stem,
leaves, and roots, and that it may have fruits and
leaves if the flowers are not picked. If some one
should tell you that the scum on pond water, the
mold on bread, and many of the disease germs,
which you have heard so much about, are also
plants, you might be surprised. They belong to
a group of plants that are called fungi. Fungi
are very simple plants that have no chlorophyll
(green coloring matter) and which are therefore
unable to make their own food as green plants do.
260
 SOME STRANGE PLANTS 261

SOME FUNGI ARE SMALL PLANTS SO TINY THAT THEY CAN

NOT BE SEEN WITHOUT A MAGNIFYING GLASS.

Instead, they take their food from other plants

and animals.
Can you imagine a plant so small that it would
take 400 of them to reach across a period on this
page? Many of the common disease germs are
tiny one-celled plants called bacteria, which are
often as small as the plants mentioned. They are
the smallest of all known living things. Although
bacteria are in the air all about us, they arc so
small that we cannot see them. A single bac¬
terium is so small that it cannot he seen without
the help of a strong microscope. If you know
that “micro” in Greek means small and “scope”
means watches couldn’t you guess why the instru¬
ment was named this way? When we wish to look
262 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

AN UP-TO-DATE MICROSCOPE MAGNIFIES

1,000 TIMES.

at microbes or bacteria, we use this instrument.

It can make whatever is seen through it appear
about 1,000 times larger than it really is. With
the microscope it is possible for us to see many
kinds of bacteria, but some of them are too tiny
to be seen even in this way.
You must not think, however, that all bacteria
are germs that cause disease. Some of them are
very useful. For instance, bacteria cause the
decay of dead logs and leaves in the forest, thus
producing humus which enriches the soil. If
there were no bacteria, the material in dead plants
could not be changed so that it would become use¬
ful to growing plants.
If you should pull up several clover plants, you
 SOME STRANGE PLANTS 263

BACTERIA AS SEEN THROUGH THE

MICROSCOPE.
Above : shot-shaped forms; Below:
rod-shaped and spiral-shaped forms.

might find tiny little lumps on the roots. In these

lumps there are bacteria. These are very useful
to the farmer since they help to enrich the soil,
by adding to it certain substances that plants
need. These bacteria are able to take nitrogen
from the air and to use it to make fertilizers. It
is because of their work that clover helps to enrich
the ground upon which it grows.
Bacteria are useful in other ways, too. They
are necessary in the making of vinegar, and in
several steps in the tanning of leather. They
help to give butter and cheese their flavors.
On the other hand, however, there are bacteria
which are very dangerous, for they enter em¬
bodies and cause disease. Some of them are harm¬
ful because they destroy parts of the body;
others, because they give off substances called
toxins, which are poisonous. Diphtheria, typhoid
fever, and tuberculosis are all caused by bacteria
which produce toxins. The bacteria that causes
tuberculosis produces a toxin and also destroys
parts of the body. Usually these bacteria destroy
the lungs, but may destroy even bones.
264 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
The body is well fitted to fight disease-produc¬
ing bacteria. When toxins are given off by the
bacteria, the cells of the body may produce sub¬
stances known as antitoxins, which make the
toxins harmless. You can tell the meaning of
the word if you know that anti means against.
Sometimes, enough antitoxin is stored in the blood
to make it unlikely that the person will ever have
the disease again. If you have once had measles
or chicken-pox, you are much less apt to have
them again for this reason.
The skin that covers our bodies is an excellent
protection against disease-producing bacteria.
When it is cut, the wound should be covered
frequently with iodine or some other good dis¬
infectant, which will kill any germs that may
enter. Tetanus or lockjaw is caused by bacteria
that enter the body through wounds. Boys step¬
ping on rusty nails often get lockjaw from the
bacteria on the nail.
Unless the skin is broken, however, bacteria
on the surface of the body can do very little harm.
Most of the disease germs that enter the body get
in through the nose and the mouth. They may be
in food or water, particularly if dishes and drink¬
ing cups are not kept perfectly clean. That is
why you should be so careful when drinking from
fountains and cups. Bacteria may be in the air,
but unless there is some one ill with a contagious
disease near-by, there will probably not be enough
disease-producing bacteria in the air to do you
any harm.
 SOME STRANGE PLANTS 265

Bacteria increase in number very rapidly if the

conditions are right for them. They take their
food from the liquid in which they live, and when
they reach their full size, which usually requires
but half an hour, they divide into two. Green
plants grow better in sunlight, but bacteria are
killed by the sun’s rays. They may also be killed
by heat, or by disinfectants.
You have learned that bacteria cause decay.
This is sometimes a very useful thing. It is
through decay that dead plants are made into
plant food. However, unless we prevent it, bac¬
teria will cause our food to spoil, and thus make it
unfit for us to eat.
Perhaps you have seen your mother canning
vegetables or fruits. She heats both the food and
the cans in order to kill any bacteria that may be
in them. Then she closes the cans, making sure
to get them air-tight so that more bacteria cannot
get in. Poods are also preserved by drying, salt¬
ing, and cold storage, all of which make it im¬
possible for bacteria to live.
Have you ever seen bread covered with mold ?
Bread-mold is a tiny plant which, like bacteria,
belongs to the fungi group. Similar plants grow
on fruit, leather, clothes, and other things. Per¬
haps you have seen mold on canned fruits and jel¬
lies. Do you know how these plants get a start ?
If you will look carefully at the mold on a loaf
of bread, you will find that it is made up of white,
fluffy threads, some of which have tiny, black
knobs at the ends. Within these knobs are very
266 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

BREAD MOLD IS A TINY PLANT.

small spores, from which the new plants develop.

When the spores have matured, the knobs burst,
and the spores are blown out into the air and float
about until they settle upon some substance where
it is possible for them to develop into new plants.
Many plant diseases are caused by fungi.
Among them are the blights, smuts, and rots.
Potato blight will sometimes destroy a whole
crop. Brown rot damages thousands of dollars’
worth of peaches and plums each year. The dam¬
age done annually in this country by wheat rust
 SOME STRANGE PLANTS 267

is estimated at $50,000,000. Corn smut is a fungus

growth found in almost every corn field. If you
examine it under a microscope, you can easily see
the tiny spores by which the plant is spread.
Fungi have no chlorophyll, and therefore, can¬
not make their own food. They must get it from
other plants or from animals. Sometimes in get¬
ting their food they produce changes that are use¬
ful to us, as when they cause dead plants to decay
so that living plants can use the material in them,
or when they change milk into cheese. Sometimes
they are harmful. Some bacteria produce dis¬
ease; others cause our food to decay. We would
not wish to kill all fungi, but we are surely in¬
terested in finding ways to keep the harmful ones
from growing where we do not want them.

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Some of these sentences are true. Some are not true.
On a piece of paper write the number of each sentence.
If it is true, write Yes beside the number. If it is false,
write No.
1. Fungi have no chlorophyll.
2. Molds and bacteria are plants.
3. Many disease germs are bacteria.
4. All bacteria cause disease.
5. Diphtheria is caused by bacteria.
6. Some bacteria are useful.
7. Bacteria grow well in the sunlight.
8. Some bacteria help to enrich the soil.
9. Antitoxin is produced by bacteria.
10. Plant diseases are often caused by fungi.
268 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

SOME THINGS TO DO

There are many interesting experiments that yon may

try in connection with your study of bacteria and molds.
Boil some slices of potato and some saucers to sterilize
them, or in other words, to kill any bacteria that may
be on them. To make sure that they are sterilized, you
will have to boil them twenty minutes every day for
three days.
Using a sterilized fork, place a piece of sterilized
potato on a sterilized saucer, and cover with another
sterilized saucer. Do not touch the potato with your
fingers.
Do the same with the other pieces of potato, with the
following exceptions. Leave one piece uncovered. Touch
another piece in several places with your fingers. Wash
your hands with soap and water, and touch a third piece
of potato immediately. Touch other pieces with money,
a pencil, or any other common thing.
Allow the pieces of potato to stand for several days
in a warm place. Compare the number of colonies of
bacteria that you find growing on the different slices.
Each colony really is made up of thousands of bacteria,
but it will appear as a mere spot on the surface of the
potato.
You would find it interesting, too, to grow some bread
mold. All that you need to do is to keep a part of a loaf
of bread in a moist, warm place. If possible, examine
the mold under a magnifying glass.
 CHAPTER XXX

NATURE’S FLOWER GARDEN

1. What early wild flowers do you like best?

2. Have you ever picked any of the woodland flowers?
3. If you did, how long did they live after you took
them home?

What fun it is to go to the woods in the early

spring to hunt for the first wildflowers! Per¬
haps you have learned the names of most of those
that grow in your neighborhood.
You probably know the dainty blossoms of the
hepatica, which is one of the earliest as well as
one of the most beautiful of the woodland flowers.
You may be familiar with the lovely white blos¬
soms of the bloodroot, the stems of which are
encircled by the green leaves of the plant.
Spring beauties brighten many of the woodlands
in the early spring. A little later you will find the
russet yellow flowers of the dogtooth violet, which
is not a violet at all, but a lily.
In wet, swampy meadows or beside brooks, the
golden, yellow blossoms of the marsh marigold
appear. This flower looks somewhat like the but¬
tercup. It blooms in early April.
Bo you know the very earliest of all the spring
wildflowers, the skunk cabbage? Although it can
269
270 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Photograph from J. Horace McFarland Go.

THE YELLOW BLOSSOMS OF THE MARSH MARIGOLD APPEAR

IN SWAMPY MEADOWS IN THE SPRING.

hardly he called beautiful, it is interesting in

appearance. Its odor is probably not pleasant to
you, but it must be attractive to the insects, for
within its folds you will find the remains of many
small creatures that have been drawn to the plant
in some way.
You will be sorry to learn that many of the
familiar wildflowers are decreasing in number
each year. As you know, many of them are wood¬
land plants, and as the forests are cut, they disap¬
pear. Then, too, many thoughtless people pick
the flowers, sometimes carelessly destroying the
plants. Even if the plants are not destroyed, how-
 NATURE’S FLOWER GARDEN 271

SPRING BEAUTIES BRIGHTEN MANY OF THE WOODLANDS IN

THE SPRING.

ever, when the flowers are taken away the seeds

are destroyed.
Dutchman’s breeches and squirrel corn arc
close relatives. # Their flowers arc heart-shaped
with two spurs or legs. Perhaps you know the
garden flower called the bleeding heart. Except
for its red color, the bleeding heart is very simi-
272 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Photograph by L. W'. Brownell

THE SKUNK CABBAGE IS INTERESTING IN APPEARANCE.

lar in appearance to these wildflowers. The heart-

shaped flowers are scattered along a stem. You
will find it very interesting to study them to see
where the stamens and the pistil are found.
The flowers of the Dutchman’s breeches are
white, tipped with cream color. Those of the
squirrel corn are greenish white, tipped with rose,
and the spurs are rounded and bag-like. These
spurs are really two petals of the flower, which
form closed tubes or bags in each of which is a
drop of nectar. There are two other petals that
are shaped like spoons. These spoon-like petals
 NATURE’S FLOWER GARDEN 273

Photograph from Wild Flower Preservation Society

BLEEDING HEART FLOWERS ARE RED.

serve to protect the important parts of the

flower, the stamens and the pistil. The nectar in
the spurs attracts the bees, and the flowers are so
shaped that the insect, in gathering the nectar,
will scatter the pollen. Pollen, as you have al¬
ready learned in other chapters of this book, is of
no value in producing seed, unless it reaches the
pistil of the flower.
Dutchman’s breeches grow from bulbs; squirrel
corn grows from a root or a tuber like a potato.
The round, yellow tubers or underground stems
of the squirrel corn are scattered along the roots.
The plant gets its name from the resemblance of
274 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Photograph from Wild Flower Preservation Society

SQUIRREL CORN IS A WILD FLOWER THAT SHOULD NOT BE
PICKED.

its tubers to grains of corn. Probably some one

said, “These look like grains of corn that have
been buried by a squirrel. Let’s call this plant
squirrel corn
The food that is stored in the bulbs and the
 NATURE’S FLOWER GARDEN 275

tubers makes these plants develop very quickly in

the spring. The leaves manufacture food to store
in tubers and bulbs for the next year while the
branches of the trees are still bare. You will re¬
call that sunlight is necessary to the plant in its
work of making food.
The fruit of the squirrel corn and the Dutch¬
man’s breeches is a pod with ten to twenty
seeds. Not many seeds are produced by each
plant. This is often true of perennials, which
grow from bulbs, tubers, or roots that live in the
ground throughout the winter.
Dutchman’s breeches and squirrel corn are
among the wildflowers that should not be picked.
They are plants that grow only in the woodlands,!
and which are therefore destroyed when the for¬
ests are cut down. Wherever they are found,
they should be protected.
The scarlet and yellow blossoms of the colum¬
bine look bright in open woodlands and meadows.
Sometimes it is found growing on rocky cliffs
where there is scarcely enough soil to cover its
roots.
The five scarlet petals of the nodding flower,
each a thin tuber, fonn the five spurs that point
upward. In each of these tubers is a drop of
nectar. You may sometime have seen a hum¬
ming bird draining the nectar from this scarlet
flower with its long, thin bill, or a bumblebee cling¬
ing to its petals.
The bumblebees and the humming birds that
take the nectar from the columbines help to carry
276 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Photograph from Wild Flower Preservation Society

THE SCARLET AND YELLOW BLOSSOMS OF THE COLUMBINE
LOOK BRIGHT IN OPEN WOODLANDS AND MEADOWS.

the pollen from the yellow-tipped stamens, which

hang downward from the flower, to the pistil,
where the seeds grow.
The columbine is another of the wild flowering
plants that needs our protection. If we pick the
flowers, they cannot do their work of producing
seeds from which plants can develop next season.
The spiderwort will probably be more familiar
 NATURE’S FLOWER GARDEN

to you as a garden flower than as a wildflower.

Its little blue flowers have three petals and six
bearded stamens. They grow in clusters on the
plant, which is usually from twelve to eighteen
inches tall. The flowers wilt very quickly, and
should never be picked, for the plant grows wild
in few sections of the country.
The ox-eye daisy, on the other hand, does not
need our protection. These field daisies are beau¬
tiful flowers, but the plant is also a weed for it
often grows where it is not wanted. Perhaps you
have seen fields covered with daisies, which may
look very beautiful to you, but which are crowding
out the farmer’s crop.
How does it happen that while many of the
wildflowers are disappearing, the daisies are diffi¬
cult to stop growing? One reason is that they are
not woodland flowers, so the cutting of the forests
does not rob them of their natural homes. Then,
too, the flower head of the daisy has a great many
simple flowers or florets, each of which produces
a seed. You will recall that many of the fall
garden flowers that you studied were of this type.
Such, for instance, as the sunflower. Yon are no
doubt glad to learn of one wildflower that you may
pick as freely as you wish.
The flowers that have been mentioned in this
chapter are but a few of the many kinds of wild¬
flowers that are found in this country. No doubt
you will find many others growing right in your
own neighborhood. You may find some which, like
the daisies, are weeds, and which you may, there-
278 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
fore, pick freely. You will find others that are
delicate little woodland plants that need your pro¬
tection. These you should learn to enjoy right
where you find them. If you pick their flowers at
all, you should take only a few, leaving some to
develop into seeds and being careful not to injure
the plants.

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

1. Name and describe some of the wildflowers that

grow in your neighborhood.
2. Which of these are woodland flowers'?
3. Which of them grow by the roadsides and in the
meadows ?
4. Are any of them found in the woodland and in
other places as well? If so, which ones?
5. Are any of your wildflowers weeds? What is a
weed ?
6. Which of the wildflowers that grow in your neigh¬
borhood need your protection? Why?

SOME THINGS TO DO

Take a trip to the woods to see how many of the

flowers mentioned in this chapter you can find.
With a wildflower guide, find out the names of as
many of them as you can.
Study the shapes of the different flowers. Find the
stamens. As the flowers wither, watch the growth of the
pistils in which the seeds of the plant are developing.
You will find it interesting to select some different kinds
of plants and observe them once in a while until the
seeds mature.
 NATURE’S FLOWER GARDEN 279

Watch for insects visiting the flowers. Find some

flowers that are so shaped that when the insects visit
them to get their nectar, they are certain to be covered
with pollen.
 CHAPTER XXXI

BUSY BEES

1. Can you draw a “bee line”?

2. Do you know that young bees have nurses f
3. Have you ever heard of the bee’s bread?

Did you ever hear any one say, “busy as a

bee”? If you could follow a bee about through
one day, you would know exactly what is meant by
the expression, for a bee is very busy, indeed!
But the fact that bees are busy is far from being
the most interesting thing about them. It is the
way they work, and the way they live, that makes
the bee the most interesting of all insects to study.
There is so much to tell about bees and their ways
that one scarcely knows where to begin.
In the first place, can you tell a bee when you
see one ? Can you tell a bumblebee from a honey¬
bee? If you cannot, perhaps you can learn to do
so by studying the pictures on this page. The
bumblebee is particularly useful to the farmer, be¬
cause it is the only insect that carries the pollen
of the red clover blossom. Do you know where the
pollen is carried? No other bee has a tongue long
enough to reach the clover nectar. Many a farmer
would have a poor crop of red clover if there were
no bumblebees about. You learned in the last
chapter how the bumblebees carry the pollen of
280
 BUSY BEES 281

HONEYBEES.
Worker Queen Drone

the columbine. Other insects are not attracted to

the columbine, for its nectar, like that of the clover
blossom, is located so that only insects with very
long tongues can reach it.
In each colony of honeybees, there arc drones
and workers and a queen. Study the pictures be¬
low. Notice that the queen and the drone are
much larger than the worker bee. You can tell the
queen from the drone by the shape of the body.
From your study of the picture, tell how the body
of the queen differs from that of the drone.
The body of an adult insect consists of three
parts, the head, the thorax, and the abdomen. As
you see in the pictures, the head of the bee is very
short. It carries the eyes, antennas (the feelers
growing out in front of the head), and the mouth.
Fastened to the thorax are three pairs of legs and
282 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Photograph by Lynwood M. Chaco

WHEN THE WORKER BEE FINDS A FLOWER WITH NECTAR,
IT STICKS ITS TONGUE DOWN INTO IT AND SUCKS THE SWEET
JUICE.

two pairs of wings. Can you find these in the

picture ?
The abdomen is made up of parts, which look
like rings on the surface. If you place a bee in a
 BUSY BEES 283
glass tumbler, you can see the parts that have just
been described, and if you could catch a bee and
examine it closely under a magnifying* glass, you
could see its interesting mouth parts, and the
place under its body from which it shoots out the
stinger to fight its enemies. You would see, also,
that what appear to be bristles on the bee’s legs
form small pockets. You will hear more about
these later.
If you watch a worker bee, it may seem to you
that it is just buzzing about from flower to flower
with no very definite reason, but this is far from
the truth. It is really hunting for the flowers
with sweet juice, or nectar. When it finds one, it
sticks its tongue down into it and sucks the nectar.
The nectar that the bee takes enters its “honey
stomach,” which is really a honey sac in which
the nectar is changed into honey. When the bee
is laden with honey it returns to the hive. There
it stores the honey in the wax cells in the honey¬
combs, and hastens away to get more. Now, do
you understand why we speak of the “busy bee”?
You may be wondering what the queen bee and
the drones are doing while the workers are busy
gathering nectar. Each of the three types of bees
found in a bee hive has a special job. The great
bee family or swarm is really a very wonderful
family, and the more that you learn about it, the
more you will find to marvel about.
In each swarm there is one queen, which stays
in the hive and lays the eggs. Sometimes she lays
as many as 1,800 eggs in one day. There are usu-
284 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Photograph from Publishers Photo Service

WITH THE AID OF A MICROSCOPE WE ARE ABLE TO SEE THE
INTERESTING CELLS OF A HONEYCOMB, EACH CONTAINING
AN EGG FROM WHICH A BEE LARVA WILL HATCH.

ally a few hundred male bees, which are called

drones because they do not work, and often as
many as 80,000 to 100,000 worker bees in each co¬
lony. The drones are the male bees. They have
no stingers and no pockets on their legs, and so
they are really helpless so far as gathering food
goes.
One of the most interesting parts of bee life is
the life-story of a queen bee. The worker bees
make the cell about a chosen egg and enlarge it.
When the egg hatches, they feed the little white
bee grub or larva that comes from it with special
food, and more of it than the other grubs get. In
 BUSY BEES 285
about five days the queen-to-be weaves herself a
silken cocoon and becomes a pupa. In the mean¬
time the workers have sealed her cell with wax.
When the queen is full-grown, she cuts open a
door in her cell and pushes through it to make her
first flight. Sometimes when a new queen devel¬
ops, the swarm is divided; sometimes the new
queen kills the old one. In either case, the young
queen soon begins her life business of laying eggs.
From this story of the growth of the queen, you
have learned that bees, like butterflies, pass
through four stages in their life story: first, the
egg; then, the little white grub or larva; then, the
pupa, which is a resting stage during which the
larva becomes an adult insect, and finally, the full-
grown adult bee. It is interesting to know that
the worker bees act as nurses for the young larvas,
feeding them upon bee’s bread and honey.
Bee’s bread is made from the pollen of flowers.
It is carried from the field in the pollen pockets
in the worker’s legs, and is packed into some of
the cells in the hive to be used as food for the bee
grubs. The workers carry honey to the young
bees as well. Now you know about the bee’s bread
and honey!
When the bees are old enough to leave the hive,
they are able to find their way home when taken
two or three miles away. More than that, they
always go home in a straight line. That is where
we get the expression, “making a bee line for
home.” Scientists believe that bees can smell a
flower when they are as far as two miles from it.
286 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

WHEN A HONEYCOMB IS NEEDED, A NUMBER OF WORKERS

EAT A GREAT DEAL OF HONEY AND SET ABOUT TO WORK TO
MAKE IT.

How would you like to be able to smell a nice

juicy peach or an apple that was two miles away!
Perhaps you wonder how long these small busy
bees live, working as they do. You know that
they begin early and work until sundown. The
■workers that live during the summer months live
only three or four weeks, but those that live dur¬
ing the winter have longer lives, sometimes living
for several months. The drones are usually killed
by the workers at the end of the summer season.
Queen bees live from five to ten years.
So far we have said nothing at all about the
making of the honeycomb. It is really a marvel¬
ous piece of work, and it is hard to believe that it
was really made by insects. If you will examine
a piece of honeycomb, you will be amazed to see
 BUSY BEES 287
how exactly these tiny cells have been made. Each
one is six-sided. The wax used for building it is
made by the bees. When a honeycomb is needed,
a number of workers eat a great deal of honey and
set about to work to make it. When a cell is filled
with honey, it is sealed with a tiny cap of wax.
If bees were honey makers only, we should call
them wonderful, hut you have already learned
that they do another very useful service. Honey¬
bees, as well as bumblebees, carry pollen from the
stamens to the pistils of flowers. You will recall
that the pollen must reach the pistils before seeds
can develop. Sometimes gardeners take pollen
with a fine brush from one flower and place it
upon another. How many people with brushes do
you think would be needed to do the work of the
bees ?
Sometime, perhaps, you may have a hive of
bees of your own. When you study them you will
learn that we could not begin to tell you in one
short chapter the wonderful story of the bee.

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Pill in the word or words to complete these sentences

correctly.
1. The bee has. pairs of legs and . pairs
of wings.
2. Honey is made from the.of flowers.
3. Bee bread is made from the.of flowers.
4. The workers . the hives by keeping their
wings going. This makes a. sound.
5. The.bee lays eggs.
288 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE
6. The male bees are called
7. There are more.than drones in the swarm.
8. Bees carry.from the stamens of the flowers
to the pistils.

SOME THINGS TO DO

If yon can find a hive of bees, yon will find it interest¬

ing to observe them as they fly in and out of the hive.
Watch a bee as it sucks nectar from a flower. Notice
whether or not it gets covered with pollen.
Put a live bee under a glass so that you can see its
appearance and the three principal parts of its body.
What are they?
It will be safer to use dead bees for closer examination.
You will need a magnifying glass to see the mouth parts,
the pollen pockets, and the place where the stinger shoots
out of the body.
 CHAPTER XXXII

THE FLOWER SHOW

When yon were younger, no doubt you often

said: “Let’s make believe,”—and what thrilling
adventures you had then! We are going to say
that to you now. Let us finish our study of the
garden by pretending that we are visiting a great
flower show. Perhaps you have gone to a garden
exhibit at your school or to a flower show in your
own city. If so, it will be easy for you to imagine
that we are all going together to see the spring-
show in a great public auditorium.
As we enter the door we see gardens every¬
where. The Avhole main floor of the auditorium
is covered with gardens, large and small. On the
lower floor are booths for smaller exhibits, but
we shall visit them later.
It is interesting to find here many of the things
that we have read about in our science reader.
Here is a garden with shade trees about it, and a
clipped hedge. It looks as if much work has been
done in it. We must look closely to see if we know
the trees, and to discover to what group the ever¬
greens belong. The lawn is velvety green, and
that reminds us how important it is to keep the
lawn free from weeds.
Spring- flowers are blooming in this garden,
289
290 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Courtesy of Walter de LaMare Co.

THE WHOLE MAIN FLOOR OF THE AUDITORIUM IS COVERED

WITH GARDENS, LARGE AND SMALL.

arranged so that the colors are pleasing to the

eye. There are beds of crocuses, tulips, iris and
daffodils. Perhaps you planted some bulbs in
your own garden last fall. If you enjoyed your
early spring flowers, you may be planning to plant
some more this fall. No doubt you can get some
ideas about the arrangement of the beds here.
Next to this garden is a miniature rock garden
complete, with moss and stones and a tiny arti¬
ficial brook. What do you know about the soil
that is used in these two gardens?
Across the way is a garden that has been
planned to show midsummer flowers, climbing
sweet peas, a bed of nasturtiums, and long rows
 THE FLOWER SHOW 291

Courtesy of Walter de LaMare Co.

SPRING FLOWERS ARE BLOOMING IN THIS GARDEN, AR¬

RANGED SO THAT THE COLORS ARE PLEASING TO THE EYE.

of cosmos, gladioli, larkspur, and California pop¬

pies, a mixture of colors and odors. There is
also an autumn garden near-by. There, as you
would expect, are dahlias and chrysanthemums.
How do you think they managed to have autumn
flowers ready for a spring flower show?
Someone else has planned an old-fashioned
garden, with hollyhocks, verbena, mignonette,
marigolds, bachelor’s buttons, and phlox, brightly
gay and ever so sweet-smelling*. You have not
studied all of these flowers, but perhaps you can
learn to tell them next summer, if you cannot do
so now.
It is difficult to leave the garden floor. Perhaps
you stop to look at the orchids, strangely spotted
with purple, orange, and pale pink. They are
292 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE

Courtesy of Walter de LaMare Co.

THE MINIATURE ROCK GARDEN IS COMPLETE, WITH MOSS

AND STONES AND A TINY ARTIFICIAL BROOK.

very different from the wildflower garden next

to it, in which you will recognize many of your
favorite wildflowers. But we must go on, for in
the booths on the lower floor there are many re¬
minders of the happy year that we have spent
studying the science of gardens and of out-of-
doors.
How attractive the seed catalogues are! We
can learn a great deal about the garden plants by
studying the pictures. There are great baskets of
bulbs, as well, but perhaps you are wondering
whether this is the time of year to plant bulbs.
You have studied some of the bulbs that should
be planted in the fall, but there are others that
 THE FLOWER SHOW 293
should be set out in the spring. Among these are
gladioli. You may choose any color you like, for
the label on each basket tells you the name of the
bulb, the color of the flower that will develop from
it, and the price.
In the next booth are fertilizers, which reminds
us that we must know something about our soil
if our garden is to be a success. There is a sign
in this booth advising gardeners to buy humus.
You will remember that humus is decayed plant
or animal matter, which enriches the soil. Some
gardeners spade manure, dead leaves, and straw
into the garden, but others buy humus in bags, as
well, and add it to the soil to make rich food for
their growing plants. Some gardeners buy peat
brought to this country from Holland.
Some one has remembered the importance of
birds in gardening, for here in a booth is a large
chart showing the common birds and their foods.
These charts remind us that the birds help to rid
our gardens of insect pests, and that they help to
keep down the crop of weeds by eating the
seeds.
And speaking of weeds, the next booth shows
half a dozen devices for weed killing. A long-
handled hoe looks useful, and if you will recall
the chapter on simple machines, you will under¬
stand why the long handle helps, for the hoe is a
lever. For digging close to the garden plants, a
little short-handled trowel may be easier to use.
Other garden machinery is to be seen in this
booth. There are hand cultivators, drills for sow-
294 ELEMENTABY SCIENCE

ing seeds, poison sprayers, and other interesting

devices.
The sun’s part in gardening has not been for¬
gotten, for in the last booth that we visit, we see
hotbeds and cold frames. Perhaps you built one
or both of these last fall for your own garden,
and used it this spring to start your plants.
We feel we would like to stay longer at the
flower show. There is so much to see, and so
much to learn! It brings to our minds that there
are garden problems for every month in the year,
delightful problems, which science can help us
to solve. It makes us think, also, that a school
exhibit of flowers and vegetables in the fall might
he an interesting project by means of which we
may carry out some of the ideas that we have
gained at the flower show.
 SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS

General

1. The theme of this book is the garden. Around this

theme are grouped such topics as insect friends and ene¬
mies, bird friends of the garden, how rocks become soil,
types of soil, cultivating and harvesting, all bearing on the
main theme in such a way as to make for unity of subject
matter.
2. First-hand observation of each subject in its natural
surroundings, and preliminary discussion based more or
less upon the introductory questions of each chapter, are
essential to securing the best values from the reading of
this book.
3. No teacher need hesitate to take her class outdoors
for study because of limitations of her own knowledge.
Begin very simply, with only the most familiar objects, and
a very limited number of them. The subjects of many
of the chapters in the book are such things as may be found
by anyone within a short distance of almost any school.
4. The following correlations are suggested, in so far as
they fit the ability of the group, and are appropriate to the
subject—oral and written expression, drawing, painting,
poems, scrapbooks, and collections.

Chapter I

Give the pupils an opportunity to tell about their experiences in

their own gardens during the summer, or in any others in which
they have worked.
Visit the nearest large vegetable garden. In some cases, it may be
advisable to make a trip to a truck farm.
295
296 SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS
In some cities it will be possible to make a cold frame for the
school garden.
The hotbed and cold frame are not difficult to make and will be
an interesting experiment for children in the fifth grade.

Chapter II

It is important that specimens that are collected be properly cared

for. Take the butterflies in the net and place in the killing bottle.
From this bottle, they should be arranged on the drying board. In
about two weeks they may be taken from the drying board and
pinned in boxes or placed in boxes with cotton. The Collector’s Set
supplied by the W. M. Welch Manufacturing Co. contains the ap¬
paratus and materials and directions for this work.
The so-called contact sprays such as kerosene emulsion, soap
washes, and nicotine sprays are used to control aphids. Directions
for making and using these sprays will be found in Farmer’s Bul¬
letin, No. 804, pp. 34-39.

Chapter III

Encourage pupils to spend some of their leisure time in park,

garden or some vacant lot to find lady bugs, tiger beetles and pray¬
ing mantes.
Pupils should be allowed to observe the activities of some of these
insects such as walking, flying, and eating.
It is a good plan to begin collecting any stages of the life history
that you find and continue during later seasons until you have
the history complete—eggs, larvas, pupas, and adults. These col¬
lections will be valuable material to supplement the specimens
brought in by the children. The collection for the school museum
will stimulate pupils to look for insects in the neighborhood and
to bring them to school.

Chapter IV

Ask pupils to bring in one or two specimens of toads for study.

Try to keep them comfortable and, when the study is completed,
take the specimens back to the fields.

Chapter VI

Even in the most congested sections of a large city, bulbs may be

forced and the blossoms enjoyed in the schoolroom.
If you desire a continuous bloom, plant one or more dishes of
bulbs every four to six weeks.
 SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS 297
Chapter VII

Write to the Agricultural Experiment Station in your state for

the weed manuals that are prepared for free distribution. These
will help in the identification of weeds.
Considerable interest is added to the work when classroom collec¬
tions are made. Bottles for weed-seed samples are included in the
Collector’s Set, made by the W. M. Welch Manufacturing Co. They
may, however, be purchased at almost any drug store. The best
collections may be kept in the school museum.
The weeds offer excellent material for the study of seed distribu¬
tion. The seeds of these hardy plants are so well adapted for trans¬
portation by wind, water, and animals that they supply excellent
illustrative material.
Most of the autumn flowering plants may be gathered without
danger of extermination and for that reason children may make
a weed booklet. In fact, so long as they collect plants that are
pests, they are doing a good turn.

Chapter VIII

Pupils will be glad to bring flowers from their gardens for this
lesson.
Encourage the pupils to study the common garden flowers and
to be able to recognize them. Seed catalogues with illustrations
will be helpful to both teacher and pupil in identifying garden
flowers.
A trip to an estate or model garden is stimulating and helpful.

Chapter IX

If pupils have gardens of their own, they will no doubt be glad

to bring flowers for class study. Seed catalogues with their de¬
scriptions and colored illustrations will be helpful in the identifica¬
tion of garden flowers.

Chapter X

Take the class to the park or woods to observe the oak trees, and
collect leaves and acorns.
Encourage pupils to bring in oak leaves and acorns and use the
tree books to identify them.
Use some of the most complete collections as exhibits for your
school museum.
Go on a trip to observe the white pine and other pines. If you
do not find cones on your trip, the pupils may be able to collect
some when they go out in the country on hikes or week-end trips.
298 SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS
Keep your best materials collected; this will be a good nucleus to
begin with next year.
The pupils’ notes on each tree may make a part of a tree booklet
if they are able to observe and include in it as many as eight or
ten trees. On the other hand, you may wish each pupil to make a
science notebook and include their notes on trees as part of the gen¬
eral notebook.

Chapter XI

Encourage pupils to observe and identify the shade trees on their

street. They should use the available tree books to help them in
their identification.
Make collections of leaves and fruits for an exhibit in your school.
Insist on neat, carefully arranged and labeled exhibits. The school
museum will be an incentive for making some of the collections.
These materials will also be an incentive for the next class to do a
similar piece of work.

Chapter XII

You may obtain from the Department of Agriculture, Washington,

D. C., a list of bulletins on the topic of birds, from which the
pupils may write for certain bulletins.
If possible, take the class into the field such as park or vacant
lot to observe birds.
Encourage pupils to be on the lookout for birds. You may stim¬
ulate this activity by posting at least once a week the names of the
pupils and their observations.

Chapter XIII

Encourage pupils to look for winter birds out-of-doors and keep

notes of what they see.
Food houses, food trays, food shelves, and feeding sticks may be
made and put out even in the cities. They may be made of store
boxes and pieces of materials about the home.
YTou will find pictures and directions for making some of these
feeding devices in the text and others in Farmer’s Bulletin No. 621.
This bulletin may be obtained by writing to the Department of
Agriculture, Washington, D. C.
Pupils will be glad to tell of their experiences with the feeding
devices which they make.
Post a list on the bulletin board as the pupils report the birds
that come to the feeding places.
 SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS 299
Chapter XIV

Take the class to tlie park or the woods to observe evergreen trees
and collect cones and seeds.
Encourage pupils to contribute some specimens for the collection
for the school museum. This collection, if properly mounted and
labeled, will be valuable material to begin the work next year.
Cases may be made for such collections or they may be purchased
from dealers in laboratory supplies.
Begin a collection of the kinds of wood obtained from evergreen
trees. Your dealers in lumber will usually be glad to give you
information and assist you in obtaining specimens of the wood.

Chapter XV

Use pictures and lantern slides to show characteristics and habits

of the bat.

Chapter XVI

Write to the U. S. Public Health Service for bulletins on the con¬

trol of rats.
Arrange assembly programs and exhibits to interest the public
in the problems relating to this chapter.

Chapter XVII

Lantern slides and pictures should be used to learn more about

the characteristics and habits of this group of animals.
Allow your pupils to investigate the topic of animal tracks.
The Field Book, by E. Lawrence Palmer, will be helpful.

Chapter XVIII

Good star maps should be available for both pupils’ and teacher’s
use. The following have been found satisfactory:
S. G. Barton and Wm. H. Barton, A Guide to the Constellations
(McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1928).
The Book of Knowledge, Volume IX, pp. 3033-40 (The Grolier So¬
ciety, X. Y.).
Persing, Ellis C., Set No. 1, No. 6874, Pocket Planetarium (Wm.
M. Welch Mfg. Co., Chicago).
Star and Planet Finder (Scientific American, N. Y.).

Chapter XIX

Allow your pupils the opportunity to experiment. The Secrets of

Science, by Ellis C. Persing (Welch Mfg. Co.), will suggest ap¬
paratus and how to use it.
300 SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS
Warning: One cannot be too careful when working with fire.
Pupils should learn how to handle fire safely.

Chapter XX

Children will be glad to bring their toys for this lesson. Select
the toys that make use of levers and the wheel and axle.
Help the children to see the use of other levers about the home
and school.
If a seesaw is available, make use of it for this lesson.
Help the children to make a toy seesaw. They can cut triangular
blocks of wood with sides about one inch or more for the fulcrum.
The weights in Set Xo. 1 (W. M. Welch Manufacturing Co.) can be
used to show how it works.
A miniature windlass and old well may be made in connection
with the lesson. Demonstrate to the children how much easier it
is to lift the bucket from the well with the windlass than by hand.
Allow children to lift a half-pound weight with the windlass of
the steam shovel, then lift it with their hands.

Chapter XXI

It is essential that you first make use of the rock materials in

your vicinity. But a collection of rocks carefully labeled will be
valuable supplementary aid. Such a collection is contained in Set
No. 1 (Welch Mfg. Co.).

Chapter XXII

A trip to observe some place where soil is in process of forma¬

tion will be interesting to students.

Chapter XXIII

It will not be difficult to make this chapter a problem of a large

unit on gardening, or it may be taken as a separate problem if
gardening is not being emphasized.

Chapter XXIV

Write to your State Experiment Station or the U. S. Department

of Agriculture for bulletins on fertilizers.

Chapter XXV

Encourage children to use available space for home gardens if

parents will allow it. Check the pupil’s plans to see that the sug¬
gestions made in this chapter are included.
 SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS 301
Send to the U. S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C.,
and to your state university for bulletins on gardening.
A trip to the hardware and seed stores will be time well spent
in connection with this study.

Chapter XXVI

If you do not have a school garden, the plan may be made for
the school if land is available. If the children have home gardens,
this may be omitted.
The garden club will help encourage activities in gardening.
Send to the Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C., for
bulletins on gardening.

Chapter XXVII

Take the class to the nearest garden to see how it is cultivated.

Encourage the children to make a weed collection and label as
many varieties as possible.
Store boxes or flower pots may be used to test.

Chapter XXVIII

Encourage pupils to go to the field to study birds. If possible,

take a trip as suggested in “Some Things to Do.”
Appoint a committee to send to the U. S. Department of Agricul¬
ture at Washington, D. C., for a list of bulletins on birds. Then
select and send for the bulletins you think will meet your needs.

Chapter XXIX

You may make gardens for these strange plants as suggested in

the chapter. The slice of potato may be placed on an ordinary
saucer and cooked in a kettle. When the potato is cooked, drain
off the water and cover with another sterilized saucer. The cover
may be sterilized by boiling in the same kettle.
One or more saucers with the potato may be used for one class.
When you have completed the study, put the saucer in a kettle and
boil again to kill the bacteria. Then the saucers may be washed.
Encourage pupils to grow molds as suggested under “Some Things
to Do.”
Petri dishes, if available, may be used instead of the saucers for
the growing of bacteria. The petri dishes may be obtained from the
supply houses. They are included in the set of materials for this
grade by the W. M. Welch Manufacturing Company, Chicago.
302 SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS

Chapter XXX

It is important that one trip or hike be taken to the park or

woods to look for early wild flowers. Observations in the field should
include brief notes and sketches.
Observe the habitat, the leaves, the stem, the flowers, the fruit, the
seed, etc.
If you do not have in your region the flowers mentioned in this
chapter, observe those that are available.
Help the pupils to find the flower and their parts in the composite
group. The daisy is suggested as a type for study. Use pictures
and lantern slides to aid you in identification and to learn more
about the habitat.

Chapter XXXI

A demonstration hive of bees can be obtained from the A. I.

Root Co., Medina, Ohio, for a reasonable rental fee for use in the
schoolroom.

Chapter XXXII

If there is a flower show in your city, take the class to visit it for
a half day.
If there is no such exhibit, pupils will be interested in planning
and holding an exhibit, even though it be on a small scale. The
local florists, nurserymen, and dealers in garden supplies are usu¬
ally willing to cooperate.
 INDEX
Agriculture, soil for, 216-223 Birds, bobwhite, 108; cardinal,
Ailanthus, tree, 97; il., 99 103; cedar waxwing, 113;
Air, 171; as conductor of heat, chickadee, 114; downy wood¬
174 pecker, 112; goldfinch, 106;
Akenes, 65 how to help them, 110-118;
Aldebaran, star, 162 juncos, 108; permanent resi¬
Alyssum, sweet, 62; il., 63 dents, 102; seed-eating, 102-
Annual plants, 66 109, 252; useful in gardens,
Antitoxins, 264 252; white-breasted nuthatch,
Ants, il., 19 116
Ants’ cows, 18 Black Death, disease, 141
Aphids, il., 19 Black oak, fruit, il., 85
Aphids, 18; black, 77 Black spruce, 130
Ashes, as fertilizer, 221 Blanching, 8
Asters, 68 Bleaching, 8
Astronomy, wonders of the sky, Bleeding heart, flower, il., 273
159-167 Bluebird, il., 258
Automobile, 180 Bobwhite, bird, 108
Axle, 186 Boy Scouts, fire making, 169,
170
Box elders, 92
Bacteria, 261, 262 Bread-mold, 265
Brer rabbit, 149
Bark, oak, 86
Bricks, 210
Barn swallow, 257; il., 256
Brown rat, 141; il., 142
Bats, 133-140; fruit bat, il.,
Brown rot, 266
138; hoary, il., 137
Bubonic plague, 142
Beans, 218 Buckthorn, 56
Bee, 280-288; hives, 285; queen, Bulbs, planting of, 46-54
life-story of, 284; swarms, Bullfrog, 37
283; worker, il., 282 Bumblebee, 280
Bee’s bread, 285 Burdock, 57, il., 56
Bees-wax, 287 Burrowing animals, 149-158
Beetles, 22; life story, 24; tiger, Butterfly, eggs of, 13
28, 29 Butterfly, cabbage, eggs of, il.,
Betelgeuse, star, 162 15
Biennial plants, 57 Butterfly, white cabbage, 13
304 INDEX
Cabbage, 7, 238 Constellations, 159; il., 163,165
Cabbage butterfly, 13; cater¬ Convection, of heat, 176
pillars of, 13; eggs, il., 15 Coreopsis, 68
Cabbage worm, 13; life story, Corn, sweet, 238
il., 14 Corn smut, 267
Cabbages, planting, 225 Cosmos, plant, 68
Calcium, 216 Cottontail rabbit, 150
Calendula, 66; il., 67 Cottonwood, tree, 92; il., 93
California jack rabbit, 152 Cottony-cushion scale, 23
Canning vegetables, 265 Crank, 187
Carbon, 216 Crickets, harmful to crops,
Carbon dioxide, 43 255
Cardinal, bird, 103 Crop, rotation, 220; cool-season,
Carrots, 238; harvesting, 247 225; long season, 238
Carolina poplar, 92 Cuckoos, insect-eating, 258
Cassiopeia’s chair, 161 Cucumbers, 239; harvesting,
Castor, star, 164 247
Catkins, flowers, 84 Cutworm, 244, 245
Cauliflower, planting, 225
Celery, 8
Cedar waxwing, 113 Daffodils, 47, 49-51
Cepheus, constellation, 162 Dahlias, il., 68
Chickadees, 114 Darwin, Charles, 44
Chickweed, 59 Diphtheria, 263
Chipping sparrow, 18 Dipper, Big, 161
Chlorophyll, definition of, 8, Dipper, Little, 161
260 Dog Star, Great, 162
Chrysanthemum Day, 78 Dog Star, Little, 162
Chrysanthemums, 71-79; hot¬ Dogtooth violet, 269
house, il., 74; out-of-door, il., Douglas fir, tree, il., 127, 128
72 Downy woodpecker, 110-112
Cinquefoil, plant, 57, 58 Dragon, constellation, 162
Clay, 210-215 Dutch national flower, 49
Clay soil, il., 211 Dutchman’s breeches, 271, 272,
Clover, il., 55; 218, 219; bac¬ 275
teria in roots, 263
Coal, 198; graphite, 198; hard,
il., 199; soft, 198, 199 Earth, the, 191
Cold frame, 9; il., 11 Earthworms, 40-45
Columbine, 275; il., 276 Electricity, uses in the home,
Compost heap, 9 172
Conduction of heat, 174 Elements, 216
Conglomerate rock, il., 195 Elms, trees, 95; il., 97
 INDEX 305
English sparrow, 18 243; hoeing, 60; insect ene¬
Erosion, 195 mies, 13; long season crops,
Evergreens, 87,119-132 238; planning, 224-229; soil,
211; tools, 230; transplant¬
ing, 237; transplanting sap¬
Fertilizers, 217 lings, 100; weeding, 243
Fibers, in plants, 221 Gemini, constellation, 164
Fire engine, 187 Georgia pine, 89, 120; il., 120,
Fire making, 169 121
Firs, 128-130; Douglas, il., 127, Georgia yellow pine, 122
128 Germs, how they enter body,
Five-fingers, plant, 57; il., 58 264
Florets, 65; ray, 65; tubular, Ginkgo, tree, 97, 98
65 Glaciers, 204; il., 206
Flowers, dahlias, 68; Goldfinch, bird, 106; il., 107
Flowers, fall, 62-69; Gopher, pocket, 154, 155
Flowers, fall, 71-79; as food, Granite, 191, 192
6; calendulas, 66; national, Graphite, 198
Dutch, 49; national, Jap¬
anese, 78; spring, 46; wild,
269-279 Hares, 149; il., 151
Flower gardens, wild, 269- Harvesting, 8, 243-250
279 Heat, 168-179; electric, il., 173;
Flower shows, 289-294 produced by mixing lime and
Flying fox, bat, 138 water, il., 172; uses of, il.,
Food, canning, 265 177
Force, 181 Heaven, Tree of, 97
Forest trees, 80-90; original, Hemlocks, 125; needles and
81 cones, il., 126
Fork, tool, 230 Hives, 285
Friction, 169 Hoary bat, il., 135, 137
Frogs, 32-39; eggs, 32, il., 33; Hoe, 231; il., 237
leopard, 37 Hoeing, 60
Fruit bat, il., 138 Honeybee, 280; il., 281
Fulcrum, 181 Honeycomb, il., 284, 286
Fungi, 260 Hotbed, description of, 9; il.,
10
House mouse, 146; il., 147
Gardening, in autumn, 5-12; House wren, 18; usefulness in
crop rotation, 220, 228; culti¬ gardens, 255
vating, 243; enemies of, 55- Humus, 208, 211
61, 149-158; fall flowers, 62; Hyacinths, 47; il., 48
fertilizers, 217; harvesting, Hyades, constellation, 162
306 INDEX
Hydrogen, 216 Maples, 95; silver, 94; syca¬
more, il., 96
Marble, 199
Igneous rock, 191 Marsh marigold, 269; il., 266
Insects, adults, 15; aphids, 18; Metamorphic rock, 198
bees, 280-288; damage to Mice, 141-148; house, 146, il.,
crops, 255; enemies of the 147; nests, 146
garden, 13; larva of, 14; Microscope, 261; il., 262
life story of, 14; pupa of, Milky Way, 161
15; useful in the garden, Mold, 265
22-31 Mulch, 243, 244
Iron rust, 202 Muskmelons, 239
Mustard, wild, 57

Jack rabbit, 152

Narcissus, 47; il., 52; myth, 51
Japanese national flower, 78
Nectar, 283
Junco, bird, 108; usefulness in
Niagara Falls, 204
gardens, 252
Nichrome, 172
Nitrogen, 216, 217
Nitrate of soda, 220
Knotweed, pink, 58 Nodding flower, 275
North Star, 159, 161
Norway maple, tree, 95
Ladybird beetle, 22, il., 24; Nuthatch, white-breasted, 116
eggs, il., 25
Larva, 14; ladybird beetle, il.,
24, 25 Oak trees, 81, 94; black, leaf,
Lava, 191; flow of, il., 193 83, fruit, il., 85, trunk, il.,
Leaves, as food, 6 86; pin, 94; red, 94; white,
Legumes, 28 82, fruit, il., 85, leaf, il., 83,
Leopard frog, 37; il., 38 trunk, il., 86
Lettuce, planting, 225, 239 Orioles, insect-eating, 258
Lever, 182 Orion, constellation, 161, 162
Lichens, 207 Ox-eye daisy, 277
Limestone fossils, il., 197 Oxygen, 43,^ 171, 216
Litmus, 221
Loam, 210-215; il., 212
Parsnips, 238
Parsley, 238
Machines, 180-190 Peas, 218; harvesting, 249;
Mantis, praying, 27 planting, 239
Manure, 214 Perennial plants, 66
 INDEX 307
Permanent resident birds, 102 Protective coloring, 36
Phosphorus, 216 Pumpkins, 239
Phosphorus, in soil, 221 Pupa, cabbage worm, 15; lady¬
Phosphoric acid, 221 bird beetle, il., 24
Pile driver, 187 Purslane, plant, 55; il., 56
Pines, 120-124; Georgia, 120;
Georgia yellow, 122; pitch,
122, il., 123, 124; sugar, 89; Queen bee, life story, 284
white, 87, il., 82, 88; yellow,
89 Rabbits, 149; cottontail, 150;
Pink knotweed, 58 jack, 152; snowshoe, 152
Pin oaks, 94 Radiation, of heat, 176
Pistil, 49 Radiator, 178
Pitch, 122 Rake, garden, 230; how to use,
Pitch pine, 122; il., 123, 124 il., 235, 236
Planets, 159 Rats, 141-148; brown, 141; il.,
Planting, bulbs, 47; cool-season 142
crops, 225; crop rotation, Ray florets, 65
220, 228; cultivating, 243; Red bat, il., 135
fertilizers, 217; harvesting, Red oaks, 94
243; hoeing for, 60; long sea¬ Red spruce, 130
son crops, 238; seeds, 235; Resin, 121
soil for, 212, 216-223; weed¬ Rigel, star, 162
ing, 243 Robins, 44
Plant lice, 18 Rock flour, 208
Plants, annual, 66; cuttings, 75, Rock garden, miniature, il., 292
il., 77; perennial, 66; strange, Rocks, 191-200; porous, 202;
260-268; tomatoes, 5; used soil from, 201-209
for food, 6, 7 Roots, as food, 6
Pleiades, constellation, 162 Rosin, 121
Pocket gopher, il., 154
Pointers, The, constellation,
161 Sand, 210-215; il., 213
Pollux, star, 164 Sandstone, 196
Poplar, Carolina, 92; il., 93 Sapling, transplanting, 100
Potash, 221 School gardens, 230
Potassium, 216 Sedimentary rock, 196
Potato beetles, 255 Seed catalogues, 225
Potato blight, 266 Seed-eaters, 252
Potatoes, early, 238 Seeds, 5; planting of, 235
Pottery, 210 Seesaw, 181
Praying mantis, 27 Shale, 198; il., 196
Procyon, star, 162 Shade trees, 92-101
308 INDEX
Silvery bat, il., 135 Tadpoles, 32; life story, il., 34
Silver maple, 94 Tar, 122
Sirius, star, 162 Teetertotter, 181
Skin, as body protector, 264 Thermos bottle, 175
Skunk cabbage, 269; il., 272 Tiger beetle, 28; il., 29
Sky, wonders of the, 159-167 Toads, 32-39; il., 35
Slate, 198 Toaster, electric, 172
Smartweed, 253 Tomatoes, life-story, il., 6;
Snowshoe, rabbit, 152 planting, 225; staking of
Soil, for planting, 216-223; plants, 239
from rocks, 201-209 Tomato worm, 246
Song sparrow, 103, 105 Top soil, 213
Spade, 230; how to use, il., 232, Toxins, 263
233 Toys, 180-190; dump truck,
Sparrows, chipping, 18; Eng¬ 183; fire trucks, 186
lish, 18; song, 103, 105; tree, Transplanting, 237
108; usefulness in gardens, Trees, Carolina poplar, 92;
252 elms, 95, il., 97; evergreens,
Spiderwort, 276 119-132; firs, 128-130; forest,
Spring beauty, 269; il., 271 80-90; ginkgo, 97; hemlocks,
Spring flower garden, il., 291 125; maples, 95; oak, 81;
Spruces, 130; red, il., 129, 130 oaks, 94; pines, 120-124;
Squash, 239; summer, 247 shade, 92-101; spruces, 130;
Squirrel corn, 272; il., 274 methods of transplanting sap¬
Stable manure, 214 lings, 100
Stamen, 49 Tree sparrow, 108
Stars, 159; magnitude of, 166 Trowel, 231
Steam shovel, toy, 184 Tuberculosis, 263
Stems, as food, 6 Tulips, 47; story of, 49
Stove, electric, 172 Turpentine, 121
Strange plants, 260-268 Typhoid, 263
String beans, 239
Sugar pine, 89
Sun, heat of, 168; how it Vacuum bottle, 175
reaches the earth, 176 Vegetable garden, crop rota¬
Sunflower, 62; il., 64 tion, 228
Swallows, 255; barn, 257; il., Vegetables, canning, 265; har¬
256 vesting, 247
Swarm, bee, 283 Volcano, 191; il., 192
Sweet alyssum, 62; il., 63
Swiss chard, 238
Sycamore, maple, il., 96 Warblers, insect-eating, 258
Sycamore maple, 95 Waterfalls, 204; il., 205
 INDEX 309
Watering-pot, 232 Wild flowers, 269-279; protec¬
Weathering, of rocks, 202 tion of, 276
Weeding, 243-250 Worker bee, 284
Weeds, 55-61 Woodpecker, downy, 110; il.,
Weight, 181 Ill, 112
Wheel, 186 Wood thrush, 258
White-breasted nuthatch, 116 Worms, cabbage, 13; il., 14
White oak, fruit, il., 85
White pine, 87; il., 82
White spruce, 130 Yellow pine, 89

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