It was a wonderful thing, this plant of mine. I did not know its name, and the plant did not bloom. All I know is that I planted something apparently as lifeless as a grain of sand and that there came forth a green and living thing unlike the seed, unlike the soil in which it stood, unlike the air into which it grew. No one could tell me why it grew, nor how. It had secrets all its own, secrets that baffle the wisest men; yet this plant was my friend. It faded when I withheld the light, it wilted when I neglected to give it water, it flourished when I supplied its simple needs. One week I went away on a vacation, and when I returned the plant was dead; and I missed it. Although my little plant had died so soon, it had taught me a lesson; and the lesson was that it is worth while to have a plant. I wish that every Junior Naturalist would have a plant. It matters little what the plant is. Just drop the seed, keep the earth warm and moist, watch the plant "come up," see it grow. Measure its height at a given time every day. Keep a record of how many times you water it. Make a note of every new leaf that appears. See whether it leans towards the light. If it dies, tell why. Four weeks from the time when you plant the seed, send Uncle John your notes. A sheet of foolscap paper contains about twenty-eight lines, one line for the notes of each day, and space enough at the top to write your name, date of sowing, kind of seed, and nature of the soil. Open the sheet and on each line at the left side write all the dates for four weeks ahead; then fill in these lines across the two pages day by day as the plant grows. For the first few days there will not be much to write, but you can say whether you watered the earth or not, and where you kept the pot or box. It will be good practice to get into the habit of taking notes. I suppose that the record of the first few days will run something as follows: MYRON JOHNSON, name of school, age ----. ----, Teacher. _Feb. 2._ Monday. Planted six cabbage seeds in loose soil from the chip yard. I put the earth in a small old tin cup, and pressed it down firmly. I made it just nicely moist, not wet. I planted the seeds about equal distances apart and about one-fourth inch deep, and pressed the earth over them. [Illustration: _Fig. 297. An egg-shell farm. The plants, from left to right, are: cabbage, field corn, pop-corn, wheat, buckwheat._] _Feb. 2._ Did not water to-day, for the soil seemed to be moist enough. _Feb. 3._ Watered at 10:30 A. M. Teacher told me to be careful not to make the soil too wet. _Feb. 4._ Watered at noon. _Feb. 5._ Put the cup nearer the stove so that the seeds would come up more quickly. _Feb. 6._ The earth is cracking in two or three places. Watered at noon. _Feb. 7._ Went to the schoolhouse and found some of the plants coming up. _Feb. 9._ Four of the plants are up. (Here tell how they look, or make a few marks to show.)