"To make us understand these seeds properly, teacher brought some grains of Indian corn for us to examine. Some of the grains he had kept in soak for a few days, so that instead of being hard andbrittle, they were soft enough for him to cut easily. He gave me some of the soaked grains after the lesson. Here they are. I"ll try and show you what teachershowed us in class. Don"t laugh if I can"t do it so well as he did, Will. Here, lend me your knife. It"s sharper than mine.
"Well," he continued, "teacher took one of the grains and cut away with his knife, like this, all theoutside mass of soft substance, and presently-bravo! I"ve done it.""Done what, Fred?" asked Norah.
"Why, look; all this outside stuff has
nothing to do with the actual seed.
Here is the seed. It was embedded in the middle of the grain.
"Now suppose we have a look at the seed itself. See, Norah, it has a plumule and a radicle, just like other seeds. But I want you to notice the outer part of the seed. This, you see, is all in one piece, and folds itself completely roundthe plumule and radicle as if to protect them. You remember, of course, that the germs of the other seeds are protected by double seed-leaves. This has only a single seed-leaf.
