It was raining in torrents outside, and the boys were a little upset
inside, for it was Saturday. They always looked forward to Saturday, for
it was their great rambling day.
“I’m afraid we can’t get out to-day,” said Frank, sadly.
“I’m afraid not,” said his uncle. “But that is no reason why we should
sulk. We have those maize seeds to look over, you know, and by the time
we have done that perhaps the rain will have stopped.”
While Frank and Tom were bringing the boxes of seeds, Uncle George and
Dolly were busy getting out knives, glasses, mounted needles, and the
books they made their notes and sketches in.
There were four small boxes in all. Each box had been sown with maize or
Indian corn at times a week apart, so that the plants in one box were
five weeks old, in the next four weeks old, and so on.
“We will begin as we did with the bean. Let us cut the seed open first.”
As he spoke, Uncle George laid some soaked maize seeds on the table.
“If you look at these seeds carefully, you will notice a large mark on
one of the flat sides of each.”
“I see it,” said Frank. “It is shaped something like a cone, and its
broad end is at the narrow end of the seed.”
“It is lighter in colour than the rest of the seed,” said Tom.
“You are both right,” said their uncle. “Now I want you to cut the seed
longways, right down through the middle of that mark. Then use your
glass, and tell me what you see.
“Look closely,” said Uncle George, “first into one half and then into
the other.”
“Oh, I see something like a tiny plant,” said Tom. “It is shut off from
a great mass of what looks like plant-food, just like our wheat grains.”
Tom made a rough sketch of it, and showed it to his uncle.
“That is the baby plant, and the great mass above it is plant-food,”
said his uncle.
“Come on, Frank. Don’t let Tom do all the finding out. What have you to
say?”
“The maize seed has only one mass of plant-food, and it does not seem to
have two seed coats like the bean,” Tom replied.
“You are right,” said Uncle George; “but if you look again you will see
that there is a thick layer of food stuff outside, which is of a
different colour from the rest.
“This is like the bran layer which is round the food store in the wheat
grain.
“This food store is starch, or, as we call it, _flour_.
“Now, let us look at the growing seeds. We will take a few seeds out of
each box and see how they differ.
“The seeds in this box, the last sown, are just a week old. You see the
root and shoot are just beginning to show.
“Make a sketch, drawing it as large as you can, and write under it,
‘Maize seed after a week’s growth.’
“Do the same with a seed from each of the other three boxes, and when
you have drawn them all, tell me of any differences you notice between
the growth of maize and that of the bean.”
“They do not grow in the same way at all,” said Frank, as he drew his
last sketch. “In the maize seed the baby plant seems to be stuck on to
one of the flat sides of the seed.”
“What about the roots, Frank?”
“Oh yes, I see that,” Frank went on. “The root branches out all at once
in the maize seed. In some of these seeds the main root has scarcely
grown at all. Their roots are all branch-roots.”
“And, in the oldest plants, one great leaf rolls round the shoot and
hides it,” said Tom. “In the bean shoot we saw two leaves quite
plainly.”
“Quite right, Tom. Now, boys, compare your drawings with those you made
of the bean. I will grow a maize and a bean seed together, so that you
can watch the growth of both, and compare them day by day.”
Uncle George then got an empty pickle bottle, and poured some water into
it. Then he took a soaked bean seed, and, having run a thread through it
with a needle, he hung it inside the bottle. He then corked the bottle,
and placed it in the window.
He next took an old lamp chimney, and made a roll of blotting-paper to
fit the inside of it. This roll of paper was stuffed with moss. A few
maize seeds were pushed in between the glass and the paper, and the lamp
chimney was placed in a saucerful of water in the window.
[Illustration: Plants that grow like Maize.
These plants have but one food mass in each of their seeds.]
[Illustration: The Horse Pond in Spring.]
“Now, boys,” said Uncle George, “I want you to watch these seeds every
day. If you do so, you will learn how a seed grows into a plant; and you
will learn this not from me, but from the plant itself.”
Uncle George filled a wide bottle with water from the tap, and fixed one
of the five-week-old maize plants in it by means of a split cork.
“I want you to watch this plant growing,” he said, as he placed the
bottle in the window. “You ought to draw it once a week. Most people
think that plants draw their food chiefly from the soil. This is a great
mistake.
“Plants take most of their food from the air, as you will see if you
watch the growth of this plant. Of course, it has a good food store in
the seed; but I think you will be surprised at the growth it makes from
that food store, the bottle of tap water, and the air.”
Exercises on Lesson VI.
1. Make sketches of a soaked bean and of a soaked maize seed.
2. Place a few beans (or peas) and a few maize (or wheat) seeds in a
box of damp sawdust. Water regularly. After a week dig up a
seed of each and draw them.
3. Dig up a seed of each at intervals of two weeks, three weeks, and
four weeks; draw and compare them.
4. Sow in a box of sawdust a few of each of the following—date stones,
orange pips, walnuts, chestnuts. Keep the box in a _warm_
place, and watch how these seeds grow.