10 



AGRICULTURE 



Fio. 9. SECTION OF COTTON 

 BLOOM 



other flowers, for example, around the strawberry blossom 

 and the head of the sunflower. 



There are usually four or five divisions of the pistil in 

 the cotton bloom. From the number of these you will 



find that you can foretell how 

 many locks of cotton there will 

 be in any boll ; for there will 

 be just as many locks in the 

 boll as there are divisions of 

 the pistil. 



The stamens in the cotton 

 bloom are numerous. Their 

 lower parts or stalks grow 

 together to form a tube sur- 

 rounding the pistil. 



Plant families. Plants that produce blooms are divided 

 into more than two hundred families. A family of plants 

 generally includes the kinds that form their flowers in the 

 same general way. For example, the Bean family in- 

 cludes the garden pea, the sweet-pea, the field or cowpea, 

 the locust tree, all kinds of clovers, and many others. If 

 you will pick from a clover head a single tiny flower, 

 you will see that its parts have the same general shape 

 and arrangement as the large flowers of the garden pea, of 

 the cowpea, or of the beautiful sweet-pea. 



Perhaps you can find out what resemblances there are 

 between the flowers of the blackberry, the strawberry, the 

 apple, the pear, the peach, the plum, and the wild rose. 

 These all belong to the very large Rose family, which 

 includes most of our fruits and berries. 



