A tree growing on a wall.
Roots sometimes seem to take a great deal of pains, as we may say, to get down into the ground. A seed of a tree was seen to take root, in Galloway in Scotland, on an old stone wall ten feet from the ground. And a tree shot up from it. There was earth enough in the crevices of the wall to make the little tree grow for a while. But after a time it stopped growing. The reason was that the tree had become so large that it could not get food enough out of the earth in the wall. The little mouths in the root sucked up all they could find; but it was not enough. The tree needed more food than when it was small, just as a man needs more food than an infant. What was to be done? There was a plenty of food in the ground below, but the trouble was to get at it. If somebody would take the tree from the wall, and set it down into the ground, it would do well enough. But no one did this. So the tree managed the matter itself. It sent its roots down the wall the whole ten feet into the ground. And then it grew finely, and would have done well if the wind had not blown it over. It was so stilted up on the wall that it could not stand against a strong wind as a tree could whose roots spread right from the bottom of its trunk into the ground.
Coverings of seeds.
I have mentioned the covering of the seed. If you look at a bean you will see that it has a firm skin. This bursts open for the root and the stalk to come out. The place where it bursts is what is called the eye. The potato, you know, has many eyes. When it is put into the ground a root and a stalk will come out from each one of them. You sometimes see potatoes sprout from the eye as they lie in the cellar.
How they are opened to let the seed grow.
There is great difference in the coverings of different seeds. The covering of some nuts is very hard. You see this in the peach-stone, the walnut, and the cocoa-nut. How do you think these are opened so that the root and stalk may push out? I will tell you. The peach-stone and the walnut, by being soaked in the ground, swell and crack open. And as to the cocoa-nuts, it is said that the monkeys crack them open by throwing them on the ground. So it is in various ways that the prison-house of the seed, as we may call it, is opened.
Questions.—What come from seeds? Do most people think that there is any thing wonderful in this? Tell what comes from a single bean. What from a kernel of corn. What from an acorn. How does the seed begin to grow? What is said about the stalks shooting up and the roots going down? Tell about the barley-seed. What is told about a tree? What is the eye of a seed? What is said about the difference in the coverings of seeds? How are some hard seeds opened, so that the root and stalk may push out?
CHAPTER XV.
LIFE IN THE SEED.
A dry seed looks as if it were dead. But there is life there, shut up in that prison-house. It is very quiet as long as it is shut up. But once let it out, and it does great things. An apple-seed, with its stout brown covering, is a very little thing. It does not look as if any thing could ever come from it. But if it gets into the ground, the moisture swells it, the covering bursts, and an apple-tree comes from the seed. And you know the Bible tells us, a tree large enough for the fowls of the air to lodge in its branches comes from the little mustard-seed.
Life asleep in seeds.
The city buried up with lava.
The life in the dry seed is asleep. Put it into the moist ground, and this life wakes up. This sleep of seeds sometimes lasts a great while. Commonly we keep them only from one year to another. But sometimes they are kept a long time in their state of sleep. I will tell you a story about this: Many hundred years ago there came a great stream of lava, as it is called, down from a mountain. It was all on fire, and looked like a stream of melted iron. It rolled over a city and covered it up. All the inhabitants were killed. When the lava cooled, people came to look for the city, but could not find any of it. But lately, people have dug down through the lava, and opened passages into this covered-up city. They have gone into the houses, and have found many things just as they were when the red-hot lava ran over the city. Some seeds were found. These were planted; and they sprung up just as seeds do that have been kept only from one year to another. The life in these seeds, then, had been asleep for many hundred years.
Many seeds from one.
A great many seeds come from one seed put into the ground. From a single kernel of corn come several ears full of kernels. The kernels or seeds from one single ear are enough to plant quite a large piece of ground. We use most of the corn for food, for we need to keep but little of it for seed. So we eat most of the beans that we raise. We keep only a little bag of them for planting the next year. As you look at the little bag, you would hardly think that it holds what will cover long rows of poles with vines. There is a great deal of life asleep for the winter in that bag.
Many destroyed.
Most of the seeds that drop from trees and plants are killed, and they decay on the ground with the leaves. It is only now and then that a seed lives and takes root. If all seeds lived and sprung up we should have too many things growing every where. If all the acorns lived, and got into the ground, and took root, there would be too many oaks. And so of other trees and plants. The seeds that are scattered on the ground have to take their chance, as we say. Some out of the whole live through the winter in some way, and come up in the spring.
Questions.—What is said of life in the seed? What wakes it up? Can the sleep of seeds sometimes last a great while? Tell about the seeds from a city that was covered up with lava. What is said of the number of seeds that come from one seed? What becomes of the seeds of plants and trees that fall to the ground?
CHAPTER XVI.
HOW SEEDS ARE SCATTERED.
Seeds are scattered in various ways. They do not all stay near the place where they drop.
Seeds scattered by man, by water, by wind, etc.
There are many kinds of seeds that man scatters in raising his crops from year to year.
Some seeds are carried away by water. Sometimes they sail a very great distance in this way, and, like people, settle down far away from the spot where they grew.
Seeds are sometimes carried about in the hair of animals, and are dropped here and there. The sheep gets seeds into its wool, and then shakes them out as it goes about the pasture, or rubs them off against the trees and the fences. The little burrs with which you make baskets, by sticking them together, are seed-holders. They often stick to your clothes. When you pick them off and throw them away, you help to scatter seeds just as the sheep does.
The wind is the great scatterer of seeds. It blows them about if they are at all light. It sometimes takes them far away from where they grew. Some seeds are made in such a way that the wind can blow them about very easily. Look at the seed of the maple-tree. There is a sort of wing on it, as if it were made to fly. So when it falls, it goes whirling away in the air. It does not drop just by the tree if the air is stirring.
Seeds of the maple, the dandelion, and the salsify.
Here is a representation of two seeds of the maple, with their wings. They always grow in this way, in pairs.
Look at the little feathery ball on the stalk of the dandelion after the flower is gone. The seeds are in the middle of that ball. Pick it, and then hold it up, and blow upon it as hard as you can. Away will fly all the seeds. If the wind is blowing it will scatter them every where. Now look at