How Plants Grow

95

one of them out, it will be soft and much larger than it was when you put it in. In five or six days, take

out another, and it will be split apart like this. By the end of a week, or very soon after,

the earth will be pushed up and cracked, and

soon a tiny pair of leaves will appear with the two halves of the

bean clinging to them, like an eggshell to a newly hatched chick. If you pull up one of these, you will see a tiny plant with roots.

The plant is now well under way in its life. What has happened? The parent bean had produced a number of these bean seeds such as you have planted. Each bean contained in it the germ, or origin, of a new plant of the same sort. Most of the bean seed was composed of the material on which the infant plant could feed when its life should begin, and the whole was inclosed in a protecting skin.

The moisture and warmth started the new plant life. The roots pushed down into the earth for further food, and the stem and leaves pushed up to get their share of help from the light and air. For sunlight and air also contribute to the life of plants. The leaves have many minute openings in them through which the plants breathe in a certain portion of the atmosphere.

By and by our bean will grow and spread and put forth little white or lilac-colored blossoms. These in turn will drop off, and where they were will appear tiny bean pods, hardly as large as a pin. When these pods have developed we have a little bush about nine inches high, looking like the picture on the next page, and yielding us a delicious and wholesome food.

What does a seed contain? What makes it germinate? Why do we plant things in the spring? How must our soil

be prepared? What stages are there in the life of the bean?

home? How do the earth and the air help plants? Do children grow like plants?

108. WRITTEN LESSON

Write the following sentences from dictation:

1. Mr. and Mrs. Edward Lawrence will be at home on Thursday, April 4, 1913.

2. In the children's garden were lilies, daisies, roses, and sweet peas.

3. "I like to dig in the garden," said George.

4. "I like to pick the flowers," said May.

5. "I wonder," said their mother, "who likes to weed the garden?"

6. George's spade and May's rake were left out in the rain.

Compare your sentences written from dictation with those printed in the book. Correct carefully all mistakes.

You have heard something about nouns in Lessons 33, 54, 60, 84, 93, and elsewhere. Words used as names are called nouns. They name all sorts of things, persons, places, and ideas. Boy, dog, stick, house, John, George Washington, schoolhouse, music, penny, patriotism, minister, fire engine, and New York are all nouns.

Select all the nouns in the fable in Lesson 13.

Divide the following sentences into subject and predicate. Select the nouns in the subjects.

1. Plants grow from seeds. 2. All the beautiful flowers in your garden grew from seeds. 3. Plant a seed in the damp earth. 4. Is the seed dead? 5. A tiny leaf pushes its way out of the earth. 6. This leaf will grow rapidly. 7. New leaves appear. 8. Do you see any flowers? 9. Under the earth are roots. 10. Light and air help the plant to grow. 11. How does a plant breathe? 12. The flowers have seeds. 13. These seeds may grow into new plants. 14. A common plant teaches us many things. 15. What do the plants eat?

Words used as names are called nouns. The principal word in the subject is often a noun.

H

110. ORAL LESSON

A DRILL IN THE RIGHT WAY OF SAYING THINGS

1. Say, I have seen him, or I saw him.

2. Say, I did it, or I have done it.

3. Say, You were, you have.

4. Say, He doesn't.

Choose sides and play the game of using correctly the

words: am, are, was, been, do, did, done,

The teacher will give the word am.

have, has, saw, seen. The first pupil on

one side will make a sentence containing that word. If the sentence is correct, score one. If it is incorrect, some one on the other side must find the mistake.

for the side finding the mistake.

That counts one

May expresses permission. Can expresses ability. The teacher teaches the lesson, the children learn it.

Study the following sentences until you are sure that you understand the correct use of may and can, learn and teach. Then make other sentences illustrating their use.

1. May I be excused at three o'clock?

2. You may if your lessons are learned. 3. I think I can learn them by then.

4. Who teaches drawing in your school?

5. Perhaps I can teach you how to draw a horse.

The teacher may use similar exercises on other common mistakes; for example:

Love for like.

Most for almost.

Leave for let.

You love your mother, you like candy.

Say, I am almost ready.

Let the kitten alone; leave it in my care.

Between for among. Usually between applies to two persons or things, among to more than two.

All day long I have been thinking of you and your mamma and wondering what you were doing. So, when I came back to the hotel to-night and found a letter from each of you, I cried, "Hurrah, this is fine!" I read your letter first, but don't tell mamma. Isn't it splendid to have snow and coasting so early in the winter? While it was snowing in New York, it was a warm summer day here in California, and I was picking ripe oranges. On Tuesday, I sent you a box by express, and it should reach you about the same time as this letter. As soon as it comes, please write and tell me how you like the oranges. In that letter, keep your eye on the capitals and the punctuation. If you try, I am sure, you can write a letter without a single mistake from the date to the signature. What is a signature? Here is your father's.

Thomas W. Vincent.

Imagine that you are Harry Vincent, and write a letter in reply to the above.

112. LANGUAGE LESSONS

PRONOUNS

Pronouns are words used instead of nouns. Take this sentence:

When John found John's sister crying, John gave John's sister John's whip.