600 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



botanists divide into so many puzzling technical classes, while ordinary 

 people are content to lump them roughly together as bulbs. If we 

 glance briefly at each of these two cases, we shall be able to compre- 

 hend more fully their connection with the doctrine of energy, and also 

 to see more clearly the problem before us when we endeavor to unravel 

 the origin of fruits. 



A germinating pea or a young blade of wheat is supplied by its 

 parent with a large stock of nutriment in the shape of starch, albumen, 

 or other common food-stuffs. If we were to burn the wheat instead of 

 planting it, the energy contained in its substance would be given off 

 during the act of combustion as light and heat. If, again, we were to 

 adopt a more usual course, by grinding, baking, and eating it, then the 

 inclosed energy would minister to the warmth of our bodies, and do its 

 little part in enabling us to walk a mile or to lift a heavy weight. But 

 if, in lieu of either plan, we follow the original design of Nature by cov- 

 ering the seed with moist earth, the chemical changes which take place 

 within it, still resulting in heat and motion, produce that special form 

 of movement which we know as germination. New cells form them- 

 selves about the feathery head, a little sprout pushes timidly its way 

 through the surrounding soil, and soon a pair of rounded leaves or a 

 spike of pointed blades may be seen spreading a mass of delicate green 

 toward the open sunlight overhead. By the time that all the stored-up 

 nutriment contained in the seed has been thus devoured by the young 

 plantlet, these green surfaces are in a position to assimilate fresh mate- 

 rial for themselves, from the air which bathes them on ever}' side, under 

 the energetic influence of the sunbeams that fall each moment on their 

 growing cells. But I need hardly point out the exact analogy which 

 we thus perceive between the earliest action of the young plant and the 

 similar actions of the frugivorous animals which subsist upon the food 

 intended for its use. 



If, however, we look at the second great case, that of bulbs and 

 tubers, we shall see the same truth still more clearly displayed. You 

 cannot grow a blade of wheat or a sprouting pea in the dark. The 

 seed will germinate, it is true ; but, as soon as the primitive store of 

 nutriment has been used up, it will wither away and die. Naturally 

 enough, when all its original energy is gone, and no new energy is 

 afforded to it from without in the form of sunshine, it cannot miracu- 

 lously make growth for itself out of nothing. But if you put a hyacinth- 

 bulb in a dark cellar, and supply it with a sufficiency of water, it will 

 grow and blossom almost as luxuriantly as in a sunny window. Now, 

 what is the difference between these two cases ? Simply this : the 

 wheat-grain or the pea has only nutriment enough supplied it by the 

 parent-plant to carry it over the first few days of its life, until it can 

 shift for itself ; while the hyacinth has energetic materials stored up 

 in its capacious bulb to keep it in plenty during all the days of its sum- 

 mer existence. If we plant it in an open spot where it can bask in the 



