Part 5

“And what are the two large white lobes for?” asked Frank.

“These are the seed-leaves. They are stores of plant-food. The young plant is fed by these until its root grows far down into the soil and its shoot grows high up into the air—until it is old enough and strong enough to find food for itself, in fact.

“In the bud, the little shoot is fed by the sap of the mother-plant. Here, in the seed, we have a baby plant wrapped up in two coats, one thick and leathery and the other soft and warm; and, in place of a large feeding-bottle, there are two huge masses of plant-food wrapped up with it.”

“Why do we put seeds in the ground to make them grow?” asked Frank.

“A seed requires three things to make it grow. These three things are—water, air, and warmth. We can grow seeds without soil at all if we give them these three things. But if either water, air, or warmth be wanting, your seeds cannot grow.”

“That is why seeds won’t grow outside in winter, then,” said Frank.

“That is the reason,” his uncle answered. “In winter there is not enough heat to make seeds grow. If you sow seeds in a pot of dry soil in summer, and do not give them water, they will not grow.”

“I think a seed is a most wonderful thing,” said Tom.

“It is,” said Uncle George, “wonderful indeed. The most wonderful thing about it is that there is life in it—sleeping life, awaiting these three things I have told you about.

“Dried up, and as hard as a stone, it will keep for years; but when air, warmth, and moisture are given it, it springs into life and becomes a plant, which grows, produces seeds, and dies.

“Now, we will plant the rest of the soaked beans—not in ground, for I want to let you see that the seed-leaves contain far more food than the tiny plant requires to feed it until it is old enough to take care of itself.

“We will plant these seeds in damp sawdust, from which they can get no food. We will see that they get water, air, and warmth, but no food except what is in the big seed-leaves.”

Uncle George then got a box filled with sawdust, and placed the beans in it. He arranged them in different ways. Some beans he placed edgeways, others longways, others lying on their sides.

“I am doing this,” he said, “to show you that, no matter how a seed happens to lie in the soil, its root will always grow down and its shoot will always grow up.”

He then covered them up with a thin layer of sawdust, and placed the box in a warm corner of the kitchen. The boys promised to water the seeds every day, and to watch them as they grew.

Exercises on Lesson IV.

1. Soak some seeds of broad bean (or pea) and maize (or wheat) for twenty-four hours. Plant some in damp sawdust. 2. What do you see when you open a bean seed? 3. Pick off the little baby plant, and try to draw it big. 4. Cut down through the centre (flat side) of a maize seed. Try to make out the little seed plant and the food store. 5. Every third day dig up a growing seed and draw it. Put the date beneath each drawing. Keep your drawings carefully.

V.—HOW A PLANT GROWS.

Every day the boys watched their buds and seeds bursting into life.

It was slow work; but, as winter passed slowly away and they were able to go out for walks more often, they had much to amuse them. They brought home all sorts of curious things, and soon had quite a host of living things to watch.

Three weeks passed before the horse-chestnut buds showed any signs of opening. By this time they had swelled out very much. First the sticky scales moved apart, then folded themselves backwards out of the way, and at last fell off altogether.

This moving apart of the scales was caused by the shoot or branch inside the bud, which was growing rapidly.

Before the scales fell off, it had burst its way through them. It was now a large mass of thick leaves all folded together, and covered all over with a sort of wool.

Soon these thick leaves moved apart, the woolly covering came off, and what a month ago was a little woolly body, so tiny that it had to be picked apart with a needle, was now a large stout branch, smooth and green, and bearing beautiful broad leaves.

Some of the buds brought forth small clusters of little green balls. These the boys at first thought were berries, but they afterwards found out that they were flowers.

After all the buds had quite opened out, they began slowly to wither. Uncle George told them the reason of this. It was because the branch had been cut away from the mother-tree, which drew its food from the soil and air.

The growing buds had used up all the sap which the cut branch contained.

But by the time their twigs had withered, the buds outside had began to open—for spring was now at hand.