HOW TO SEE A SEED GROW.



MANY little folks wonder how a seed grows. Some boys and girls have taken up the seed after planting it in the ground and thereby prevented it from taking root.

We may, however, see the roots shooting out from the hyacinths and other bulbs that we grow in glasses in our windows. And in this way we may see other seeds sprout and root.

A gentleman, to gratify his little sons, took a glass tumbler, round which he tied a bit of common lace, allowing the lace to hang or drop down in the center of the glass. He then put enough water in the glass to cover the lower part of the lace, and in this hollow he dropped two sweet peas. The little boys were told to look at them every day, and they would learn what was going on underground with similar seeds.

One morning the boys hurried from the breakfast-room to look at the glass with the peas in the south window. They found that while they were fast asleep the little brown skins had burst, and a tiny white sprout was seen on the side of each pea. 

The little sprouts soon grew long enough to reach through the holes in the lace, and on the top of the peas two little green leaves were seen.

In time the boys saw the white, threadlike roots reach almost to the bottom of the glass, while the green leaves grew large and gave way to a stalk or stem.

In this way most seeds may be seen to grow.




TRAINING.


AND is this all my mother could do for me?" grumbled the woolly-bear caterpillar, as he crossed the gravel path where the little golden beetles shrank from him in something like disgust. "Frightful, of course frightful; very humiliating!" he exclaimed, as he began to make his dinner of the dead nettle to which he had crawled.

"Patience!" said the dead nettle; "you won't always be a woolly-bear."

A little time and the woolly-bear became a pupa, that is, an insect-mummy.

"Is this change for the better? Am I any nearer beauty now?" he asked despairingly of the nettle. "Surely, I was better off when I could at least show life and move about, than I am in this living tomb!"

"Patience; when things come to the worst they mend," said the nettle; "you won't always be a mummy."

One morning the sun shone on the glorious wings of a tiger-moth, as it balanced itself on the hedge, trembling with delight.

"Ah," cried the nettle, " I told you so; the training wasn't pleasant, but see what has come of it!"





WOODEN PAPER. 



It is an interesting sight to see the great logs of poplar wood go through the powerful machine at the Connecticut river pulp-mill at Holyoke, Mass. The wood, as it is brought to the mill, is about the size of cordwood used for fuel, and in this shape the machine takes it and gnaws it up very fine. So rapidly does this process go on that the machine eats about seven and a half cords of wood a day, and this makes between three and four tons of pulp. After coming from the machine, the pulp is put into vats and reduced by the action of chemicals. It is used for the manufacture of news and book paper.