New Series, Supplement to January, 1906. 427 



and plants will die or be put into a lingering decline that would end in 

 death. 



It will not be long before we shall be talking about planting seeds 

 and then you will realize that a plant is a most excellent mother in that 

 she puts up a lunch for the support of each embryo plant until its own 

 starch factories are big enough to be in w^orking order and able to supply 

 itself. 



When next summer comes and you have a garden planted and every- 

 thing seems to be growing prosperously, there will be plants here and 

 there that seem to be ailing, and you will write to your old uncle telling 

 him the symptoms and you will say that you think your plants are sick 

 with some kind of blight. When you say " blight " I'll know what you 

 mean. Unfortunately the industrious plants of which I have been speak- 

 ing sometimes have guests that do not make any starch for themselves, 

 but sponge their living, and come down on their host plant in such num- 

 bers that in supporting them the poor host dies — a very shabby thing 

 for a guest to do. 



There are a number of plants of such a mean nature. When you 

 hear of grain being stricken with " rust " you are to understand that some 

 seeds, or more properly speaking, spores, too small to be seen when float- 

 ing in the air, have taken root on the working plants and are sponging a 

 living. 



The dodder on clover makes no starch but is a leech upon its host, 

 draining off enough of its carefully stored sustenance to support itself 

 without such useful activity. Uncle Ighx 



