. But with the cultivated ones, like
cucumbers, apples, beans, and the like, all of those that are valuable
for eating, we are careful to save the seeds and plant them where they
will be safe. Instead of leaving them to chance we make a garden and
plant them in it where they will be snug and warm."

"And wouldn't the seeds grow, or the little plants come up, if the bee
hadn't gone to the flowers, mamma?"

"No, darling, it is the bee, or some other insect, or the birds, that
marry all the bright-colored plants in this way, as the wind marries
the soberhued ones. Without these we should have no vegetation."

"But, mamma, marry! Why do you say they marry? I thought only men and
women married."

"The marriage that takes place between men and women, dear, is only a
repetition of the marriage of plants. Its object is the same--to
reproduce the race. Plants began to marry long, long before men and
women ever came on earth and have been doing it ever since,
fortunately for us, because if they should give up the practice we
should have to follow suit. The earth would go back to the barren
state in which it was before life came to it."

"It seems so strange," said Elsie. "Why, I never heard of anything so
funny! A bee, just a little bee, and without him--"

"Funny is scarcely the word," Mrs. Edson smiled, "but it is certainly
wonderful. The pumpkin, the bean, the pear, the squash, the orange,
all the fruits and vegetables that we eat, and which the animals eat,
must be fertilized in order to reproduce their kind, and all the
fertilizing is done either by the wind, which blows the pollen from
one plant to another, or by birds and insects. But this is only a
small part of the secret I have to tell you, just the beginning. There
are many more wonderful things to come than I have told you yet, but I
think this is enough for the first time. You would better think over
what you have heard until tomorrow, when I will tell you the next
step, which is about the animals. There are four things in this lesson
that you must remember:

"First, every male plant has at least one stamen, which bears pollen.

"Second, every female plant has one ovary which contains seeds.

"Third, the seeds in the ovary must be fertilized by the pollen in the
stamens in order to be able to grow and bear children.

"Fourth, flowers are fertilized by birds, insects and the wind.

"Do you think you can remember all that, darling?"

"Oh, yes, mamma, I'm