372 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



A CROSS AND LENGTHWISE SECTION OF AN 



EAR OF CORN WHERE EACH KERNEL 



HAS ITS OWN HUSK. 



This ear has the "modern" location on the stalk, but 



retains and intensifies its tassel habit, of each kernel 



covered, as shown in the tassel photograph on the 



previous page. 



plant's history. It seems evident that 

 the corn at one time developed its seeds 

 in what we now know as the tassel. 

 The seeds were covered practically in 

 tlu' same way as the seeds of wheat are 

 covered in the head. The plant seemed 

 to learn that hefore it could develop a 

 great wealth of seed it must seek some 

 other and stronger place for its sup- 

 port, and that place was found. Like 

 the person that came from the uncul- 

 tured home it for a long time bore all 

 its former peculiarities. In other 

 words, it took a long time for the corn 

 to learn that it would be economy to 

 put its spathe-like bracts in what we 

 now know as the husks rather than to 

 continue the old method and cover each 

 kerne'; separately. In doing this, or 

 rather in learning the lesson of its mod- 

 ern home, the reversions of its former 

 method are, indeed, ludicrous, because 

 the corn is proverbially a plant that 

 Sports freely. It is this characteristic 

 that makes it so interesting. One 

 never knows what it will do next be- 



cause it is such a bundle of diverse ten- 

 dencies. Some persons have only one 

 line of thought; they always act in a 

 certain characteristic way, while others 

 whom we call erratic have a variety of 

 characteristics, and we never know 

 what will be their next mood. Such 

 people arc interesting, vivacious and 

 versatile. Corn has a similar mingling 

 of tendencies, and we never know what 

 will happen next. 



Imagine a young man, who in his 

 early days has been known as a gawky, 

 trying to become accustomed to the 

 courtesies and modern fashionable 

 manners of a city ballroom. How in- 

 teresting *re his performances and his 

 mistakes and the ways in which he 

 tries to hide the rusticity of the past 

 beneath the culture of the present. So 

 it is with corn. It makes one almost 

 laugh to see it stand between the tassel 

 of the nast with its attempt to grow a 

 tiny, wheat-like kernel wiCll each bract, 

 and its ambitious longing for the time 

 when it shall grow all its kernels free 

 on a central ear covered by spathe-like 

 husks. We find several of the steps 

 in the gradation of development as we 



A HUSK FOR EACH KERNEL. 



Taken from the ear pictured in the previous column. 



A husk opened at lower right and left to show 



the single kernel. 



