“To-day,” said Uncle George, “we are going to try to find out something
about seeds.” And he placed upon the table a saucerful of beans which
had been soaking in water for two days.
“First let us look at the seeds as they are when we get them from the
shop,” he said, laying a handful of hard, wrinkled beans upon the table.
“They are as hard as stones, and very much smaller than those we
soaked,” said Frank.
“Yes, that is one thing we have learned about them already. Seeds take
in water and swell greatly.” As he spoke, Uncle George gave Frank, Tom,
and Dolly each a small knife and a needle mounted in a handle. He then
laid a small magnifying glass on the table.
“Take a soaked bean and look at it well,” he said. “First we will look
at the outside of it, then we will see what it has inside.”
“My bean is covered all over with a smooth skin,” said Dolly.
“And there is a long black mark on one side of it,” Tom added.
“Come on, Frank,” said his uncle, “haven’t you got something to say.”
“It is sort of kidney-shaped,” said Frank.
“Nothing more?”
Frank shook his head.
“Squeeze it,” said Uncle George, “and tell me what you see.”
“Oh, there is water oozing out of a little hole at the end of the black
mark,” said Frank.
“That shows us that the seed is not quite covered by its skin,” said
their uncle. “That little hole is there to allow a tiny root to grow
out.
“Now let us remove the skin, or skins rather, for there are two of them.
Begin as far away from the black mark as you can. You see that the outer
skin is tough like leather, while the inner one is soft and silky. Now,
if you pull the skins off gently, you will find something like a stout
little root pointing towards the little hole you have already noticed.
If you look at the edge of the seed you will notice a thin line or
crack. Putting the knife into this crack, we find that the seed consists
chiefly of two large, flat, white parts or lobes, with a very small
object in between them. Let us remove one of these white masses, and
have a look at this small object with the glass.”
[Illustration: Seed of Runner Bean.
(1) outside; (2) inside; (3) baby plant, enlarged.
_a_, shoot; _b_, root; _c_, seed coat or skin; _d_, junction of
seed-leaves.]
Each of the children had a look through the glass in turn.
“Why,” said Tom, “it is very like what we found inside the
horse-chestnut bud. I can see two tiny leaves.”
“Remove the little object on the point of your needle and look at it
again,” said Uncle George. “It has got something that your little
horse-chestnut shoot did not have, I think.”
“There is a little thing like a root,” said Tom.
“It is a little plant with a very fat little root,” said Frank.
“That is just what it is,” said his uncle.
“Has every seed got a little plant inside it, Uncle George?” Dolly
asked.
“Every seed, Dolly, no matter how small.”
Uncle George split up one of the hard seeds that had not been soaked,
and showed them a little plant of the same kind inside; but it was so
hard and brittle that he could crumble it up into powder between his
fingers.
“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.