62 THE NATURE-STUDY OF PLANTS 
infancy, and I can now pass on to the opportunities 
provided for a successful career, with, however, a 
recommendation that the student should always try to 
find out which of the two kinds of seed is produced 
by the plant he is studying. It is not always easy, 
especially when they are very small, but that is no 
reason why he should not try successfully to do so, 
II. SEED-DISPERSAL 
(a) Its Object 
Good parents in the human world do their utmost 
to give their sons and daughters the very best chance 
they can afford or command, and not only by educat- 
ing them discreetly and providing them with money. 
They strive for all they are worth to place them well, 
and in the vegetable world also plants adopt means to 
provide their seeds with a chance of successful germina- 
tion, or to place them where they will be able to grow, 
and in due course to bring forth their own offspring. 
This subject of placing the seeds favourably is 
known as seed-dispersal, and I wish I could treat it as 
fully as I should like; in practice, and for the sake of 
convenience, one frequently refers to it more shortly 
as “* dispersal.” 
As a matter of fact, the dispersal-unit, or the thing 
actually dispersed, is frequently a good deal more than 
the seed pure and simple; for example, a grain of 
wheat is really a little dry fruit containing a single seed. 
We need not, however, go into such a question here, 
butifor the sake of simplicity I shall speak of the seed, 
or the fruit, whenever by so doing I can, without 
harm, avoid introducing another technical term merely 
for the sake of a more or less pedantic indulgence in 
