194 A SPRING RELISH. 



fruit drops, then the leaf drops. The first two are 

 preparatory and stand for spring ; the last two are 

 the crown and stand for autumn. Nearly the same 

 thing happens with the seed in the ground. First 

 the shell, or outer husk, is dropped or cast off ; then 

 the cotyledons, those nurse leaves of the young plant ; 

 then the fruit falls, and at last the stalk and leaf. A 

 bud is a kind of seed planted in the branch instead of 

 in the soil. It bursts and grows like a germ. In the 

 absence of seeds and fruit, many birds and animals 

 feed upon buds. The pine grosbeaks from the north 

 are the most destructive budders that come among us. 

 The snow beneath the maples they frequent are often 

 covered with bud scales. The ruffed grouse some- 

 times buds in an orchard near the woods, and thus 

 takes the farmer's apple crop a year in advance. 

 Grafting is but a planting of buds. The seed is a 

 complete, independent bud ; it has the nutriment of 

 the young plant within itself, as the egg holds several 

 good lunches for the young chick. When the spider, 

 or the wasp, or the carpenter bee, or the sand hornet 

 lays an egg in a cell and deposits food near it for the 

 young when hatched, it does just what nature does 

 in every kernel of corn or wheat, or bean, or nut. 

 Around the chit or germ she stores food for the 

 young plant. Upon this it feeds till the root takes 

 hold of the soil and draws sustenance from thence. 

 The bud is rooted in the branch and draws its sus- 

 tenance from the milk of the pulpy cambium layer 

 beneath the bark. 



