TEACHING BOTANY ONE TOPIC AT A TIME,
ILLUSTRATED BY SUITABLE MATERIALS
AT ANY SEASON OF THE YEAR.
EDITOR OF SCIENCE
-Sir: The recent
papers in SCIENCE concerning the management of classes in botany prompt the following. 

In these times, of course, every true
teacher of botany insists that his pupils shall
study the objects before receiving much, if
any, instruction from books or persons. I
take it for granted that any teacher of a
class beginning subjects that are treated in
Gray's Lessons would prefer to take them up
in about the sequence there given, but he
will find it impossible to procure at any
season of the year enough suitable material
that is fresh to fully illustrate many of the
sections of the book. For example, he cannot procure at any one time suitable materials to illustrate the section on stamens.
The varieties there illustrated appear at different dates some weeks apart. So of the
forms of pistils, the torus, fruits, etc. My
plan has been to collect quantities of stamens
of the barberry, sassafras, lobelia, cypripedium, mallow, locust, dandelion, lily, tulip
tree, blueberry, sage, milkweed, and in most
cases preserve each kind by itself in twenty-five per cent. alcohol, or in formalin one
hundred of water to one of formalin. These
are ready when we want to study stamens.
A specimen or more of each kind of the preserved objects for illustrating any section of
this subject can be placed in a small dish
before each pupil in case fresh specimens
cannot be procured. In many instances,
when not allowed to dry, these can be
gathered up and used for several successive
classes.

In like manner, it is very satisfactory to
be able, when fruits are to be studied, to
have a good many kinds to illustrate the
various sorts, such as half grown plums
or cherries, the mandrake, bloodroot, violet,
mulberry, winter-green, etc. Lessons in
morphology can, in this way, be made more
impressive than when some of the illustrations are used in one day and others in a
week or a month.

AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE, MICH.
W. J. BEAL.