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.

[Illustration: FOUR O'CLOCK SEED, SHOWING SEED-LEAVES AND EMBRYO]

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.

[Illustration: DIFFERENT KINDS OF OVARIES--BEAN, APPLE-CORE, POPPY POD]

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.

[Illustration: FLOWER--OVARY, STYLE, STIGMA, STAMENS, ANTHERS, PETALS,
SEPALS]

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 lo