7, 
water has so refreshed them, and so filled the wrinkled 
coats and swelled them out, that they look almost 
ready to burst. 
So you see, do you not, how the water manages to 
get inside the seed so as to give the baby plant a drink ? 
Usually it is rather late in the year when seeds fall to 
the earth. During the winter the baby plant does not 
do any drinking; for then the ground is frozen hard, 
and the water cannot reach it. But when the warm 
spring days come, the ice melts, and the ground is full 
of moisture. Then the seed swells with all the water 
it sucks in, and the baby plant drinks, drinks, 
drinks, all day long. 
You scarcely need ask how it keeps warm, this 
little plant. It is packed away so snugly in the 
seed shell, and the seed shell is so covered by 
ime catth, and the earth much of the time 1s. so 
tucked away beneath a blanket of snow, that usually 
there is no trouble at all about keeping warm. 
But how, then, does it get air? 
Well, of course, the air it gets would not keep alive 
a human baby. But a plant baby needs only a little 
air; and usually enough to keep it in good condition 
makes its way down through the snow and earth to 
the tiny openings in the seed shell. To be sure, if the 
earth above is kept light and loose, the plant grows more 
quickly, for then the air reaches it with greater ease. 
So now you see how the little plant inside the peony 
seed gets the food and drink and air it needs for its 
growth. 
In the picture above (Fig. 86) you get a side view 
