winter months, when Nature Study material is less plentiful than it is
in the summer and autumn. The phials or envelopes may be stored in a
shallow box, or the phials may be mounted on a stout card. They may be
attached to this card either by stout thread sewed through the card and
passing around the phial, or by brass cleats, which may be obtained with
the phials from dealers in Nature Study supplies.

MAN AS A DISPERSER OF SEEDS

Man as an agent in the dispersal of seeds should be made a topic for
discussion.

Obtain, through the pupils, samples of seed-grain, clover seed, timothy
seed, turnip seed, etc. Ask the pupils to examine these and count the
number of weed seeds found in each.

The results will reveal a very common way in which the seeds of noxious
weeds are introduced.

Describe the introduction from Europe to the wheat-fields of the Prairie
Provinces of such weeds as Russian thistle, false-flax, French-weed. The
seeds of these weeds were carried in seed-grain, fodder for animals, and
also in the hay and straw used by the immigrants as packing for their
household goods.

Careful farmers will not allow thrashing-machines, seed drills,
fanning-mills, etc., to come from farms infested with noxious weeds to
do work upon their farms, nor will they buy manure, straw, or hay that
was produced on dirty farms.

THE SUGAR MAPLE

FIELD EXERCISES

Select a convenient sugar maple as a type. Ask the pupils to observe and
to describe the height of the tree, the height of the trunk below the
branches, the shape and size of the crown, the diameter of the trunk,
the colour of the bark, the markings on the bark, the number and
direction of the branches, and the density of the foliage. Compare the
density of the foliage with that of other kinds of trees. Require the
pupils to make a crayon drawing of the tree.

Examine the crop of grain produced near a shade tree. Compare the crop
on the north side of the tree with that on the south side. Account for
the difference.

Is the crop around the tree inferior to that in the rest of the field?

Find out how long the various sugar maple shade trees in the locality
have been planted. Is it a tree of rapid or slow growth? Are these sugar
maples infested with insects or attacked by fungi?

Do these trees yield sap that is suitable for making maple syrup?

Examine trees that have been tapped and find whether the old wounds
become overgrown or cause decay.

Find out a