Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

The young plant, under the influence of warmth and moisture, is able to draw out the nourishment from the seed-leaves. If we examine the seed-leaves after the seed has sprouted we shall find them less hard and firm; they have given part of their substance to the embryo. They have also turned greenish in color, while, as we know, the leaves of the embryo, which at first were so white and tiny, have also turned green and grown larger. Between the two embryo-leaves there is a little growing tip.

The young plant now no longer depends upon the seed-leaves for its food. Down in the earth the roots are taking in nourishment, and up in the air the little green leaves are also busy supplying food to the growing plant. The little growing tip lengthens into a stem from which a leaf is seen unfolding. This new leaf is not shaped like the embryo-leaves nor like the seed-leaves. It has three leaflets. The stem continues to lengthen, and soon another compound leaf appears. Thus the stem lengthens and leaves keep coming, the little growing tip at the end of the stem always pushing upward.

Very soon the stem becomes too long and slender to stand upright. Then it does a strange thing. It circles about as though in search of something. It moves very slowly, but if you notice which way it is pointing in the morning, and again at noon, and again at night, you will see that it has changed its position. Why does it do this? It wishes to twine about a support, and will continue circling about until it finds one. If there is none, the slender stem, unable to stand upright as it lengthens, will in time bend to one side or even lie on the ground; but the end still continues to circle about, and when at last it touches a stick or the stem of another plant or anything else about which it can twine, it continues its circling motion about the new support, and the vine as it lengthens finally becomes twined about it.

How does the food which the plant takes from the earth and the air find its way to the different parts of the plant to nourish them?

The plant food is in a liquid form called sap, which runs through channels in the roots and stems and leaves, and is thus carried to all parts of the plant. To a certain extent it is like the blood of animals, which finds its way all through the body and supplies food to the tissues.

The plant is alive; it eats, it breathes; sometimes it even moves. It breathes the same air that we do, only it takes it in through tiny pores in the leaves. Eating and breathing, the plant continues to grow, leaf after leaf unfolding. At last, in the axil of one of the leaves there comes a little bud that does not unfold into a leaf but into a flower.

The appearance of this first blossom on the plant the child has himself raised from the seed will be watched with eagerness, and its advent can be made a subject of general pleasure and notice in the home. The child's pleasure in his flower will be greatly increased if he finds that others are also watching and enjoying it.

Here, too, is a chance to develop a certain respect or reverence for the beautiful and fragile flower. It is not to be picked. We are to leave this flower and see what becomes of it. If we pick it, it will soon wither and die. If we leave it where it is, it will continue to grow, and something very interesting will happen. After a few days the pretty white or red flower-leaves or petals will fall off; but any disappointment which the child may feel at the falling of the petals can be quickly changed into interest about what remains, for not all the flower fell. The centre of it is still there. It is a little green pod. It is so delicate that by holding it against the light one can easily see the little seedlets, or ovules, inside. "Ovule" is a good word to learn, and the easiest way is to use it at once, always referring to this little seedlet in the young flower-pod as the ovule. The word "ovule" means little egg; later, a word almost identical will be used for the eggs of animals.

Thus by a use of carefully chosen, well-understood terms the child has from the very beginning a dawning sense of the oneness of all life. He can be told that "ovule" means little egg, and that the seed of the plant is the egg of the plant, which hatches--sprouts--into the plant we see.

It is better not to break the tender little pod to show the ovules, even if there are plenty of flowers. Look at the pod against the light and see the ovules dimly outlined. Each ovule is attached to the pod by a little stem which can also be seen with the light shining through the pod. The stem the child can look for when the peas are being shelled for dinner, or when lima beans are being shelled. If the pea or bean pod is opened carefully, the whole row of seeds will be seen attached to the pod, each by its exceedingly short stem.

The ovary is a part of the plant in which grow the ovules. The perfect and clear understanding of just what the ovary is will be very helpful later, and the word "ovary" will be found extremely useful.

The interest should not be concentrated on the ovary to the exclusion of other flower parts. The bright petals should have their share of attention. They form a nest, or home, or covering, to enfold or wrap about the delicate seed-pod. The thought that they are fragrant and beautiful because of the young life they cherish, and that they never appear excepting where there are young seeds to be cared for, and that every flower has the little pod or seed-cradle at its centre, can be made to cast a lovely glow over this side of the flower-life, which will later reflect more or less strongly upon all life.

When the child discovers that the ovules are attached to the ovary by little stems, this very important question can be answered,--How are the ovules nourished? They must have food, or they cannot develop into seeds.

The sap, which is the food of the plant, runs through the little stems that hold the ovules to the ovary, and thus, entering the ovules, nourishes them. The ovule has no embryo. It is a very simple little seedlet indeed. But after a while its little embryo begins to form and its seed-leaves to develop. When the ovule has developed in this way we call it a seed. It remains attached to the ovary, receiving nourishment from the sap until it is quite ripe. As the seed forms in its little pod, its thick sturdy seed-leaves become larger and fuller. The sap constantly stores up in them plenty of good food. Thus the parent plant provides for the seed, so that when it goes out into the world alone it may not perish until it has learned to care for itself. The food in the seed-leaves is the bank account which starts the young plant in life.

When the seed is fully formed, its seed-leaves full of food, its embryo perfect, then we say it is ripe. It no longer needs to draw nourishment from the sap of the parent-plant. It is able to start in the world on its own account. When the seed ripens, its little stem withers away, so that the seed lies loose in the pod. In the case of the bean-pod, when the seed becomes free the pod opens, and the seed or bean, as we call it, falls out.

If we look at a ripe bean or pea or any seed we shall find upon one edge of it the scar where the little stem was attached. The scar is the umbilicus or "navel" of the seed. The seed does not become free from its attachment to the pod until it is able to live alone. As long as it continues to grow it remains attached and receives the sap. As soon as it has its growth and no longer needs the sap it separates from the pod. This separation is easy and natural. There is no tearing apart, no mutilation. It is exactly like the falling of the leaves in the Autumn. It is, in short, the birth of the seed or infant plant.

Some mothers talk of the mother-plant and the seed-babies from the beginning. They show how the little seeds are fed and protected, how they are literally a part of the mother-plant. Other mothers prefer to tell only the botanical story, leaving all application to animal life for later consideration. In either case the essential points are a clear understanding of the growth of the ovule in the ovary, the manner in which it is nourished and protected, and its final separation from the ovary to enter into the outer world as an individual provided with everything necessary to its needs.

Some mothers use the words "sprout" and "hatch" interchangeably, speaking sometimes of the hatching of the seeds, in order to make more vivid the realization of the similarity of processes in the plant and the bird. They also speak of the birth of the seed. Clearly to understand the relation of the seed to the mother-plant is to understand accurately and scientifically the relation of every living creature to its mother.

The child who enjoys planting the bean one season will want to plant it the next, for there is nothing children more delight in than planting things and watching them grow. This interest can be encouraged in any home, for where there is no available yard a few flower-pots of earth, or a box of it, will afford opportunity for a good deal of pleasure and instruction. The child can be encouraged to collect seeds that are formed like the bean, and plant them too. He will quickly discover that a peanut is made essentially like a bean, and he will be interested to plant some raw peanuts. The pea, too, he will soon add to his list. As the season advances he will discover the cucumber, melon, and squash seeds, and, with a little help, the apple, pear, and quince seeds, as well as those of the cherry, plum, and peach. The latter have very hard outer coats, but are formed in all essentials like the bean. Indeed he can have a very long list by the end of Summer. But he cannot make these green seeds grow. That is, many of them will not sprout until they have lain a certain length of time. So even where they are ripe and fall from their pods, he had better keep them until toward Spring before planting, even in the house.

If he takes pleasure in examining his seeds, he will find in each one the tiny embryo tucked in between the seed-leaves; in the apple seed the young apple-tree, in the pumpkin seed the young pumpkin vine. Even the vegetables being prepared for his dinner can be interesting to him. As the peas are shelled he can see the pretty green seeds attached to the side of the pod. He can find the embryo even in the unripe seed, but he knows there would be no use in planting these green peas, for they are not yet fit to live apart from the mother-plant. If they were torn away and planted in the ground they would perish.

Not all seeds have the food for the embryo stored up in the seed-leaves. If a morning-glory seed be soaked, it will swell up and soften, and the hard outer skin will burst. Inside will be found a tiny embryo with two thin, papery seed-leaves that contain no nourishment to speak of. But packed about the embryo is a rich food-substance which, though hard in the dry seed, becomes soft and gelatinous upon soaking, looking indeed not unlike the white of the egg, and having the same use; for it forms the first food of the embryo, which absorbs it. The embryo thus begins its growth, which continues until the roots and first leaves are sufficiently developed to supply nourishment.

After the child has studied his beans, let him then study the morning-glory and four-o'clock seeds, which store the food separately from the embryo instead of in its seed-leaves. In every seed there is food enough stored up to give the embryo its first start in life.

During the Summer the child can be helped to pass many pleasant hours looking at seed-pods and finding as many kinds as possible. He can discover how the ovaries are placed in the flower and wrapped about by the bright petals, being covered while yet in the bud by the green calyx. He can look at the different forms of ovaries and discover how some, like the bean, have only one compartment or cell, while others, like the apple-core, have five, and yet others, like the poppy pod, have many. If he is interested, he can quickly and unconsciously learn many of the more common botanical terms used in describing plants, so that when he comes to study technical botany he will find it shorn of most of its terrors.

Certain botanical terms are valuable both now and later; used simply, just as we talk of table, chair, bed-post, garden-walk, etc., they are, as has been said, learned unconsciously.

In teaching the later facts of the reproductive life, it is a great help for the child to know the names and uses of certain parts of the flower; in many flowers, as for instance the lily, the parts can be seen without pulling the flower to pieces. In the centre is the ovary, as the child already knows. Let him notice the long stalk on top of it and learn to call this the style. On top of the style is a knob--the stigma. Ovary, style, and stigma together make the pistil. Surrounding the pistil are six stamens, each having a slender stem or filament and terminating in a little box; this box is called the anther and is filled with flower-dust or pollen. Around these is a circle of bright petals. In many flowers, outside the petals is a circle of green sepals, which in some plants fall off or turn down when the bud opens.

THE FLOWER

_Sepals_--usually green and affording protection to the bud.

_Petals_--usually large and bright.

_Stamens_--{ filament (stem of anther)
{ anther (containing pollen)

{ ovary (seed-pod)
_Pistil_--{ style (stem of stigma not always present)
{ stigma (knob at top of style or ovary)

The care of the mother for her offspring, that impulse of nature found everywhere in nature's children, is beautifully illustrated in the flowers. When first the petals fall, leaving the tiny green pod, it stands up on its stalk, but in a few days it will be found hanging down. Why should this be? For one thing, as the pod turns down it gets out of the way of the other buds that one by one are preparing to blossom, for beans generally grow in clusters, one blossoming after another. Thus all the flowers have plenty of room and air and sunshine, and a lesson in unselfishness and thoughtfulness for others may be learned. Moreover, the hanging pod is better protected against accidents than the upright one. It is less noticeable and less likely to be knocked or broken off. The mother-plant takes every precaution possible for the welfare of the seed-children, even sending them far from home for their benefit.

Every one has noticed how the sweet-pea pods are curled up when the seeds are shed. This curling takes place just at the moment when the pod opens to allow the seeds to escape. This sudden twisting of the pod flings the seeds sometimes long distances. If the seed were to fall close to the mother-plant it would find the soil impoverished in certain ways, the mother-plant having absorbed the food materials from it. If the seed can be hurled out of reach of the absorbing roots of the mother-plant, it may have a better chance; even if it should fall where other things are growing, it may find the peculiar food it wants sufficiently abundant, for not all plants absorb just the same things from the soil.

Looking at the dried bean and pea-pods in the fall of the year, we shall find nearly all of them twisted. And looking over the other plants of the fields and hedges, we see how much trouble has been taken to enable the seeds to go out in the world and find new growing-places. Some seeds are snapped out, as the touch-me-nots and witch-hazels; some are supplied with flat wing-like surfaces to be borne by the wind, as the maple-keys and elm seeds; some have bristles or down upon which to float in the air, as the lilies, dandelions, and lettuces; some have hooks by which to attach themselves to the coats of passing animals; and others have yet other devices for getting to pastures new. The whole subject of how seeds travel about the world is very interesting, and collecting these wanderers and watching their habits will afford a rich summer's entertainment.

Thus the child learns a thousand interesting things about the plant life,--among them, but not in any way prominent, the phenomena which are connected with the reproduction of the plant. This work can all be done before the child is eight years old, and in many cases it can be done much earlier, at least so far as inculcating the most essential truths is concerned. Many details will slip away in time, but if the work is thoroughly done the great primal truths of living things will stay, and as the child's life unfolds, they will illuminate it in certain directions.

According to the age and opportunities of the child his information about the plant can be enlarged. The plant's method of breathing can be explained to one who knows something about the composition of the air, and of the use which the human body makes of the oxygen. The child who can understand it will be greatly interested to know that the plant uses the oxygen of the air, and returns carbon dioxide to it as a waste, essentially as his own body does. He should also know that the plant breathes very little in comparison to the animal, consequently it does not greatly affect the air, taking out but little oxygen and returning to it but little carbon dioxide.

The plant's method of taking nourishment from air and soil is also very interesting. It is only the green parts of the plant that can take food from the air. The plant can become and remain green only under the influence of sunlight. So finally the plant owes its life to the power of the sun, just as in one way or another we all do. Plants in a dark place soon lose their green color, grow pale and sickly, and finally die. All green leaves and the young green twigs are able to take food from the air. The food they thus take is carbon dioxide, the very thing both plants and animals breathe out as a waste, and whose presence in large quantities makes air unfit to breathe. But the plant must have the carbon dioxide and can get it only from the air, so it is constantly withdrawing this harmful substance from the air and converting it into plant tissue. It consumes only part of the carbon dioxide, however, for the oxygen that is tied up in the carbon dioxide is set free and given back to the air, only the carbon being retained. So the plant is continually taking in the destructive carbon dioxide and giving out the wholesome oxygen, thus keeping the air pure and fit for us to breathe. In short, the plant eats with its roots and with its leaves. With its roots it eats certain things it finds in the earth, and with its leaves and other green parts it eats the suffocating gas we breathe into the air.

This important function of the plant, in supplying the oxygen we need and in destroying the harmful carbon dioxide, can be illustrated in many graphic ways. We depend upon the plants for our very existence in this respect: they stand between us and destruction from excessive accumulations of carbon dioxide. On the other hand, the carbon dioxide is so important to the plant that it could not exist without it. All the carbon it gets is obtained from this source. Wood is largely carbon; a charred stick which retains its full size and shape is almost pure carbon. Thus the breath of our bodies is converted by the plant into the wood from which we construct our houses, furniture, etc. In a certain sense the chair we sit upon is made of the breath of our bodies. Besides these debts to the plant, we finally owe to it the food we consume, which comes from the plant, even meat being but vegetable matter one step removed. The plant changes the chemicals which the animal cannot use in their crude form, into plant substances which animals can use. Thus the vegetable and animal kingdoms are mutually dependent upon each other. Neither could exist, at least in its present condition, without the other.

Not only will such facts as these be interesting to most children, they will deepen the dawning consciousness of the fundamental unity of all forms of life, which it should be the province of nature-study to develop.

It may not be out of place here to say a few words about the picking of flowers. Children instinctively want to pick them. They wish to possess, touch, caress these lovely objects. If left unguided, this tendency shortly degenerates in many children into a desire to pick every flower in sight. A walk taken by such children through the fields can be traced by the wild flowers that strew the way. Great handfuls are gathered, and then, becoming burdensome, are thrown down. The child who lovingly watches his flowers grow and blossom will be less likely to destroy in this wanton manner. Here, too, is a good opportunity to teach him to be thoughtful and generous to others. If he carelessly tears up and throws away the flowers, those who come after him will not have them to enjoy; it is far better to look at the flowers and admire them in their own homes and leave them there. A little crowd of hepaticas at the root of a tree in the woods is one of the most charming sights of spring. Let the child who finds such a treasure call the rest, that they too may enjoy the pretty picture; let the children get down and put their faces against the flowers if they want to smell them, and then go away leaving the beauty undisturbed. Their adult comrade at such a time by exclaiming appreciatively over the sweetness of the little scene, the bright flowers against the dark tree, the green moss growing over the rock at one side, can often open young eyes to a harmony of beauty which will cause the whole composition to be recalled later with pure pleasure; a far deeper and higher pleasure this little picture lingering in the memory than any number of flowers torn from their places soon to wilt in the hands of the vandals whose only thought is how to get the most in the shortest time.

Should children never gather flowers, then? Of course they should. But they should learn to exercise restraint, and as they grow older, judgment. They can easily be persuaded to gather only a few flowers. A few are almost always more beautiful than a great mass, and there is no exception to this whatever where the delicate spring flowers are concerned. Let the child carefully gather a few to take home to mother, father, sister, aunt, some dear one who has not shared the walk. These flowers should not be neglected, but at once put in water, placed where they can be seen and enjoyed, and the water should be changed every day as long as they last. In this way the flower gives real pleasure to a number of people, and the child learns several lessons valuable to the formation of his character.

As the child grows older, he can be taught not only self-control against gathering useless quantities of flowers, but also to exercise judgment in regard to those he does pick. For instance, seeing a flaming bush against a superb background of green foliage, shall he disturb the poise of the picture for the sake of taking some of the flowers? Better is it to look about for similar flowers less beautifully placed. Instead of culling from the little hepatica company at the tree root, let him search for more hidden or less beautifully grouped flowers. The isolated flowers will be just as pretty after they are picked as are those in the fortunately placed groups; for he will soon learn that with the flower he cannot take its surroundings excepting in the memory. In this way he will be able to carry away a beautiful mind-picture such as would not remain if he had destroyed it; he will become more observant of the flowers as pictures, cultivate his taste, in short, and also learn to enjoy beauty without destroying it.

Wanton destruction of flowers should never be countenanced, no matter how abundant the flowers may be. Self-restraint is not inculcated for the sake of saving the flowers so much as for the influence it will have upon the development of the child, although there are parts of the country where one would like to see it exercised for the sake of the flowers themselves. The child who learns to respect flowers will never be one of that discreditable company who by sheer vandalism are constantly driving the wild flowers farther into the back country, finally exterminating whole species. In many parts of New England, banks which were carpeted with arbutus a generation ago are now devoid of a single root. Spring may come and Spring may go, but no may-flowers will ever again shine from those banks to delight the eye of the woodland wanderer. All the generations to come must be deprived of the pleasure of these delightful flowers, the earliest visitants of spring--to what end? Did the pleasure they gave to those who took them compensate in the least degree for their loss to the world? Truly not.

In all the open places near cities, where flowers would delight the greatest number of eyes and hearts, there are no flowers, and this because those who went first had no respect for the flowers themselves or for the rights of those who came after.

Not only should the child learn to exercise judgment in gathering flowers, but he should also learn how to gather them properly. If the arbutus had not been carelessly torn up by the roots and trampled on, it would have yielded its whole tribute of blossoms year after year without disappearing. If the arbutus-gatherers, knowing the nature of the treasure they were gathering, had gone armed with scissors and had clipped the blossoming ends without other injury to the plant, at the same time taking care not to trample it, the banks would still have been clad in beauty.

VII

THE FERTILIZATION OF THE FLOWER

As a preparation for this work, let the children notice the flower-dust or pollen that shakes out of the flowers or is seen clinging to the anthers.

The child presently discovers where the pollen comes from. It is hidden in the anthers. He can hunt in all the flowers to find these little pollen-boxes, some of which, as in the goldenrods, are so small that he will have hard work to find them, even though they shed such clouds of pollen. He can notice the different kinds of stamens, see how some have long stems or filaments, others short ones, others again none at all. The filament is of no other use than to hold up the anther. The anther with its pollen is the important thing; so there may be useful stamens with no filaments, but never useful stamens with no anthers.

The amount of pollen in the flowers is always astonishing and interesting. Why should there be so much?

That the bee gathers honey from the blossoms is one of the earliest things the child learns. Just whereabouts in the flower-cup, and just how the bee finds this honey, how it carries it home, where and how and why it stores it in the hive, is one of the most fascinating of stories, as good as a fairy tale. In connection with this comes very naturally the story of the bees and the pollen. The child will be delighted to learn that the bees collect pollen as well as honey; that the honey bees and bumble-bees have baskets on their legs on purpose to carry it home; that they knead it up with honey and make it into what is known as bee-bread.

We seldom see bee-bread these days, as patent hives furnish all the honey found in city stores and no bee-bread is sold. In remote country places, however, where the honey is removed _en masse_ from the hive, there will be plenty of bee-bread to give piquancy to the children's bread and honey. Moreover, where bees are kept, the bee-keeper can usually be persuaded to take out a little bee-bread for the children to see and taste; for it is always present no matter what the kind of hive used, though it is not always easily obtainable, for where their household arrangements permit, the bees generally prefer to store it in the lower chambers away from the honey. Thus the flower supplies large quantities of food for the bees and for us, and long ago, before America was discovered and before cane-sugar came into use, the people depended upon honey for their sweetening.

When the children have found how general is the presence of pollen in the flowers, where it comes from, and how it is gathered by the bees, they can learn that the pollen is valuable to the plant itself. It is indeed one of the most necessary parts of the flower, for without it the ovules could not develop.

The effect of the pollen upon the seeds can be prettily illustrated by a simple experiment. Take two or three little pots of geraniums whose buds are just ready to open. Be sure to have single geraniums, and to stand them where they will not be disturbed and where the wind will not blow upon them. Shortly after the flower opens, the anthers will be seen crowded in its throat and covered with pollen. After a few days the pollen will have dried up, and the style, tipped with a five-rayed star-like stigma, will push up above the anthers. Mark pot No. 1 as untouched. From pot No. 2 carefully take a little pollen on the end of a small clean paint-brush or tooth-pick and touch with it the five-rayed, star-like stigma of the flowers in pot No. 3. Be careful not to let any of it touch the stigmas of the flowers in pot No. 2, the pot from whose flowers the pollen is taken.

Leave the flower-pots undisturbed and watch results. When the flowers finally drop their petals, in pots No. 1 and No. 2 there will be no seed-pods remaining, everything will drop, including the little flower-stalks and the main stalk supporting the whole cluster of flowers. In short, no trace of flowers will be left. So far as seed-forming is concerned, the flowers might as well never have blossomed. Very different will be the result in the flowers of pot No. 3. These received the pollen on the stigma, and in some way this pollen affected the ovules so that they began to develop. We say the flower was fertilized by the pollen, and "fertilized" is a valuable word to learn at once. When the petals of the fertilized flowers fall, all does not fall. There remains the ovary with the long style and the star-like stigma. The ovary continues to grow, as do the seeds within it. Since the geranium is a house-plant, raised under unnatural conditions, not all the fertilized flowers will succeed. Some may fall at once, like the unfertilized ones. But out of the whole bunch of fertilized flowers some will be almost sure to start the development enough to show that in some way the fertilized flowers were able to produce seeds, while the others will in no case make any attempt at seed-forming. Even though none of the seeds come to perfection, the fact that they start at all will demonstrate the effect of the pollen. The geranium is a good plant to use in illustrating this point, because it is so constructed that it cannot fertilize its own flowers.

What the child thus far learns is simply that the pollen is in some way necessary to the development of the ovule. If the experiment with the geraniums is not practicable, the child can be told that the pollen is necessary to the development of the seed, that it falls upon the stigma and nourishes the little ovules down in the ovary, and that no seed can form without the aid of the pollen. All the seeds we plant in the flower gardens or in the vegetable gardens, and all the grain we sow in the fields, are produced by the help of pollen. All the peas and beans and other seeds we eat owe their existence in part to the pollen, and without it they could not develop.

Some parents teach their children at once that the pistil is the mother-part of the plant, caring for the young seeds, the stamens the father part, providing for them, and that the stamens and pistil growing in the same flower are brothers and sisters. Other parents prefer to use only botanical terms, leaving the extension of the thought to later consideration or to the child's own logic, for children often reason out all the facts--in a very general way, of course--from only this botanical study.

But we are not yet done with the pollen. It not only assists the ovule to develop, but it impresses upon it its own characteristics. In other words, the seed inherits from the pollen as well as from the ovule. Inheritance is a very wonderful thing. It is that power which causes the offspring to resemble its parents. In some wonderful way the tiny ovule, the tiny pollen grain, remember everything about the plant they came from and are able to transmit this memory to the developing offspring, so that it may become like its parents.

Again, the child under eight can understand the principal facts of fertilization. The older child can add to his stock of facts, and one of the things he will be likely to want to know is how the little pollen grain up on the stigma can influence the ovule down in the ovary.

We know how the ovule is formed. We know that it grows from the inside of the ovary. If we were able to examine the development of the pollen grain inside the anther from its very beginning, we should find the same thing true of it. The anther is a little box like the ovary, and the pollen grain grows from the inside of it, being at first a part of it and nourished by the same sap. When it became ripe it fell free into the anther cavity. We then have a little box full of ripe pollen grains.[1]

The pollen grain is like the ovule in structure, only much smaller. It is so tiny and the anther so small that we cannot watch its development as we can that of the ovule. But botanists have taken great pains to examine the pollen and to watch its development under the microscope, so that from them we know the truth.

If we examine the young ovule we find it apparently nothing but a little sac full of a semi-liquid substance. This semi-liquid substance, or at least a part of it, is alive and is very important. It is protoplasm, which is the only living substance; all the living parts of plants and animals are made from protoplasm.

The pollen grain is also a little sac containing protoplasm. Thus we have these two little sacs of living substance, each growing in a similar manner, one to the inside of an ovary, the other to the inside of an anther. Naturally, it is the living substance in these little sacs that is important. It is the living substance of the ovule that unites with the living substance of the pollen grain to become a seed; or, to say the same thing another way, it is the living substance of the pollen grain that unites with that of the ovule to become a seed; or yet again, it is the union of these two living substances that enables the seed to develop.

To understand how the pollen substance finds its way to the ovule substance let us examine the pollen grain a little more carefully. Pollen grains are of many shapes, though usually they are globe-shaped, or football-shaped. Tiny as they are, the outer skin is often marked with grooves and ridges in a very ornamental manner. They have two skins, an outer hard one, a softer inner one. The outer skin is not equally thick and hard all over. It has little glazed spots sometimes, like little glazed windows. Now, when the pistil is ripe the stigma is _sticky_. When the pollen grain falls upon this sticky stigma its inside wall swells up, just as the bean does when we soak it. But the outside wall cannot swell, consequently the inner wall finally breaks through at one of the weak spots in the outer wall. Then the inner wall absorbing moisture and nutriment from the stigma actually grows, becoming a tube, which finds its way down through the style. The living substance of the pollen grain runs into the tip of this tube, and so is carried with it down through the style. The tube is nourished by the juices of the style as it goes along, and finally it gets to the ovary and the ovule. Every ovule has a tiny opening, or micropyle as it is called, and it is now easy to guess what that is for. The pollen tube pushes straight toward the micropyle, enters into the ovule through the micropyle, and then the living substance it has carried all this distance in its tip breaks through its delicate wall and mingles with the living substance of the ovule. When this has happened, the ovule begins to grow and to develop into a seed.

We see that the whole pollen grain could not possibly force its way down to the ovule. It cannot move of itself, for one thing, and if it could it is too large to pass between the tissues of the style. So it simply sends down the long tube, which grows fast, pushing along through the style, whose tissues are rather loose, and carrying with it the only valuable part of the pollen grain, its living protoplasm. No ovule can possibly grow into a grain without this tiny bit of pollen.

In explaining this union of the two protoplasms, the child's mind can be turned upon the wonderful mystery--one of the great mysteries of the universe--of how this tiny atom can influence the whole future plant. There is ample opportunity here to elevate his mind and spirit to a high plane, and, by talking of the wonders of inheritance, to give many a hint for future reflection. Without this law of inheritance the world would be chaos. Imagine the seed of a rose sometimes developing into an oak tree, the egg of a bird into a bee or a trout. Imagine eggs developing haphazard into anything. There would be no use in living. Nothing could be depended upon. But there is no danger that any such thing will happen: the law of inheritance is unyielding. From a rose seed must come a rose bush,--and this is good. But on the other hand, from the seed of a weak, poor plant will grow another weak, poor plant. Whatever the parent is, good or bad, that must the offspring be. But sometimes the offspring inherits only the best in the parents, and so is better than they.

Thus in gathering his seeds, the child will select only the largest and best and take them from only the best plants to put in his garden the next year, at the same time planting beautiful truths in the garden of his soul. Not the least of these truths is a profound sense of the immutability of law. Through his nature-work the child can learn as nowhere else the stern, unbreakable decrees of law, and the respect and reverence due to it from every intelligent being. Another important and far-reaching fact that the child can learn from his garden is, that his plants are good or poor according to the care he takes of them. They must have the right kind of food (soil), the right amount of water, the right temperature and surroundings,--some loving the open sunshine, others needing to be partly protected from it. In short, according as its environment is suited to its needs, and as its inheritance is good or bad, will the plant be strong and handsome or otherwise.

Another truth to be learned from the flowers is the value of cross-fertilization. This was demonstrated by the great Darwin, who fertilized a number of flowers with their own pollen, and an equal number with the pollen from the blossoms of another plant of the same kind. When the seeds were ripe he gathered them, carefully keeping those of the self-fertilized flowers separate from the others. The next season he planted both sets of seeds under exactly the same conditions, that is, they had the same soil and moisture, the same sun and air, and the same care. The plants that grew from these two sets of seeds were very different, those from the self-fertilized seeds being smaller and weaker in every way than those from the seeds fertilized with pollen from another plant, or cross-fertilized, as we say, thus proving that it is not best for the plant to be self-fertilized. Someway, it needs the stimulus from less closely related pollen in order to grow vigorously and perfectly.

While the cross-fertilization of the same order of plants is so desirable, it is not possible for the pollen of one order to fertilize the ovules of another order. There must be a certain degree of similarity between flowers able to fertilize each other. The pollen of an apple blossom might, for instance, rest upon the stigma of a lily, but the pollen could not penetrate to the lily ovule. It would have no effect upon the lily.

That the seed inherits equally from the ovule and the pollen grain is a truth that should be impressed in many ways. It is very wonderful that anything so small as a pollen grain, often as small as the tiniest speck of dust, should be able to transmit to the young seed the peculiarities of the plant from which it came. That it does this, the child himself can prove in a most interesting way. He can plant some white petunia seeds in one side of his garden, and some red ones in the other. The seeds should come from a reliable florist's in order to be sure of results. When the petunias ripen their seeds, those from the white flowers should be gathered and carefully labelled, and then those of the red flowers, care being taken not to mix the two colors. The next summer, plant the seeds as before. When the flowers blossom, those in the white bed will no longer be white,--some may be, but others will be red, and still others red and white. The same will be true of the flowers in the red bed. What has happened? The bees going from flower to flower have carried the pollen from one bed to the other, and some of it, rubbing off on the stigmas as the bees searched for honey, fertilized the flowers. Thus some of the ovules of the white flowers received an impression of red from the pollen of the red flowers, and grew into red flowering plants. In others where the impression of red was less strong, the result was the production of red-and-white spotted flowers.

By fertilizing white flowers with pollen from red ones we can almost always get seeds that will develop into plants bearing flowers that are not white. What is true of color is true of other characteristics of the plant, such, for instance, as size and shape of leaves, habit of growth, size, shape, and quality of fruit, etc. Thus by careful cross-fertilization, we are able to produce not only beautiful and new blossoms, but also many delicious new fruits. Most of our cultivated fruits have been produced in this way. For instance, if two species of wild strawberries were found, one, large and beautiful but sour or tasteless, the other, small but delicious, the two could be bred together until finally a perfect berry, large and well-flavored, would result.

When the children are interested in their gardens they can try to make a new flower, using for the first experiments one that comes up from the seed, blossoms, and matures its seeds the same year, and also readily changes its color as a result of cross-fertilization. Such are the petunia and the sweet-pea. The prettiest new flower produced can be marked and its seeds saved for future use, and the flower can have a name of its own. Florists often name their choice new flowers from some beautiful woman, and it would be a pretty tribute on the part of the child to name his favorite new petunia or sweet-pea after his mother. Of course this work will necessarily be very crude and the results uncertain, since the successful production of new plants is a science in itself; but enough can be done to interest the young experimenter thoroughly and enable him to learn many valuable lessons. In these early, childish experiments, an interest in gardening may be awakened, which will last through life, the man, the woman, finding rest, relaxation, exercise, and pleasure in going from the trying daily work to the garden a while every day. Even a plot of ground a few feet square can afford great opportunity for experiment and beauty.

Cross-fertilization among the plants does not, of course, depend upon man as an agent. Since cross-fertilization is so valuable, it is not surprising to find many devices in the plant world for securing it. Honey and color, which attract winged messengers, are among the most universal helps to cross-fertilization. In many cases, the structure of the flower is such that it cannot fertilize itself. In the geranium, the stamen and the pistil in the same flower mature at different times. In some species, as among the lilies, the style is so long that the pollen could not fall upon it without artificial aid. Some flowers are so constructed that they can be fertilized by certain kinds of insects and by no others; among these are the orchids and our clovers and milk-weeds. Again, some flowers have an ovary but no stamens, while a neighbor has stamens but no ovary, making self-fertilization absolutely impossible.

Indeed there is nothing more fascinating in the study of botany than the methods by which the flowers secure cross-fertilization, nearly all of our common garden-flowers affording illustrations. Here too, is a field where the young botanist can do really valuable work, for while much is known and has been written on the subject, much remains unknown. There are many books that give valuable and delightful information about cross-fertilization.

The method of fertilization of the flowers satisfactorily accounts for the great amount of pollen produced. Being blown by the wind or carried by insects, much of it is wasted, consequently there must be ample allowance made for this waste. So the flowers produce thousands of pollen grains which they can never use themselves.

VIII

WHAT CAN BE LEARNED FROM THE LIFE OF THE FISH

Whatever is universal is good.

Whatever is universal is true.

Whatever is universal is beautiful.

Nothing disperses, so to speak, the fogs enveloping the thought of sex like the realization of its universality. The air clears when we know that every living thing is bound by the same laws, even the flowers in our gardens.

We have an interesting testimony as to the helpfulness of this thought from one of the great educators of youth, Froebel. Speaking of his own childhood when he became conscious of what his father, who was a minister, was constantly meeting in his parish work, he says:

"Matrimonial and family relations were often the subject of his
admonitory and corrective conversation and remonstrances. The way
in which my father spoke of this, made me consider the subject as
one of the most pressing and difficult for man, and in my youth and
innocence, I felt deep grief and pain that man alone among created
things should pay the penalty of such a sexual difference that made
it hard for him to do right.... Just then my oldest brother, who
lived away from home, came back for a time, and when I told him my
delight in the purple threads of the hazel buds, he made me notice
a similar sexual difference among flowers.

"Now my mind was satisfied. I learned that what had troubled me was
a widespread arrangement throughout nature to which even the quiet,
beautiful growths of flowers were subject. Henceforth human and
natural life, soul and flower existence, were inseparable in my
eyes, and my hazel blossoms I see still, like angels that opened to
me the great temple of nature.... Henceforth it seemed as if I had
the clue of Ariadne, which would lead me through all the wrong and
devious ways of life; and a life of more than thirty years with
nature, often, it is true, falling back and clouded for great
intervals, has taught me to know this, especially the plant and
tree world, as a mirror--I might say, an emblem--of man's life in
its highest spiritual relations; so that I look upon it as one of
the greatest and deepest conceptions of human life and spirit when
in holy Scripture the comparison of good and evil is drawn from a
tree. Nature, as a whole,--even the realms of crystals and
stones,--teaches us to discriminate good from evil; but, for me,
not so powerfully, quietly, clearly, and openly as the plant and
flower kingdom."

The stronger this feeling of the universality of sex, the more dispersive, as it were, is the thought of the subject. It would be difficult to connect personal and impure thoughts or feelings with a star whose distance in space was realized; and so with all other thoughts, the more they can be elevated into wide, general regions, the less disturbing they will be likely to become.

All the facts of sex-life can be learned in the flower, and the associations thus indelibly impressed cannot fail to leave at least a trace of fragrance and loveliness on even an obtuse nature. No matter what the later experiences or mistakes may be, the whole conception of this side of life cannot sink so low as might be the case if there were not this flower-sweet background. And that is worth something.

It is not difficult to pass at once from the flower life to human life, and there are cases where this may be advisable. When, however, the beginning-work has been done with young children, and when we consider all the stress laid upon nature-work these days in school and out, and all the books written and all the stories told of living creatures of all kinds, it is helpful and easy to linger in the delightful and impersonal realm of the lower life yet longer, with this distinct advantage, that the _feeling_ of universality, which is very different from the _thought_ of it, will be strengthened.

For several reasons, the step from plant life to animal life can well be taken by means of the fish, particularly with little children. There is nothing prettier than living fishes in water. The fascination they have for all conditions and ages is shown by the crowds always seen at exhibitions of live fish in aquaria.