[Illustration: FIG. 30.—MUSKMELON SEEDLINGS, with the unlike seed-leaves and true leaves.] SUGGESTIONS.—Few subjects connected with the study of plant-life are so useful in schoolroom demonstrations as germination. The pupil should prepare the soil, plant the seeds, water them, and care for the plants. =10.= Plant seeds in pots or shallow boxes. The box should not be very wide or long, and not over four inches deep. Holes may be bored in the bottom so it will not hold water. Plant a number of squash, bean, corn, pine, or other seeds about an inch deep in damp sand or pine sawdust in this box. The depth of planting should be two to four times the diameter of the seeds. Keep the sand or sawdust moist but not wet. If the class is large, use several boxes, that the supply of specimens may be ample. Cigar boxes and chalk boxes are excellent for individual pupils. It is well to begin the planting of seeds at least ten days in advance of the lesson, and to make four or five different plantings at intervals. A day or two before the study is taken up, put seeds to soak in moss or cloth. The pupil then has a series from swollen seeds to complete germination, and all the steps can be made out. Dry seeds should be had for comparison. If there is no special room for laboratory, nor duplicate apparatus for every pupil, each experiment may be assigned to a committee of two pupils to watch in the schoolroom. =11.= Good seeds for study are those detailed in the lesson, and buckwheat, pumpkin, cotton, morning glory, radish, four o’clock, oats, wheat. It is best to use familiar seeds of farm and garden. Make drawings and notes of all the events in the germination. Note the effects of unusual conditions, as planting too deep and too shallow and different sides up. For hypogeal germination, use the garden pea, scarlet runner, or Dutch case-knife bean, acorn, horse-chestnut. Squash seeds are excellent for germination studies, because the cotyledons become green and leafy and germination is rapid. Onion is excellent, except that it germinates too slowly. In order to study the root development of germinating plantlets, it is well to provide a deeper box with a glass side against which the seeds are planted. =12.= Observe the germination of any common seed about the house premises. When elms, oaks, pines, or maples are abundant, the germination of their seeds may be studied in lawns and along fences. =13.= When studying germination the pupil should note the differences in shape and size between cotyledons and plumule leaves, and between plumule leaves and the normal leaves (Fig. 30). Make drawings. =14=. Make the tests described in the introductory experiments with bean, corn, the castor bean, and other seed for starch and proteids. Test flour, oatmeal, rice, sunflower, four o’clock, various nuts, and any other seeds obtainable. Record your results by arranging