80 



QUERIES AND ANSWERS. 



Exhaustive 

 Crops. 



Green 4gg q q^^ j consider a mass of hog weeds plowed under as a raanur- 



Manuring. j^g of the land ? 



A. Yes ; to a small extent ; but not so etBcient as if the plants plowed 

 under were noted as collectors of potash from soil depths or of nitrogen 

 from the air. The benefit from a mass of common surface weeds turned 

 under is more from aerating the soil than from any direct fertilizing effect. 



469. Q. Why do some crops seem to poison the land, unfitting it for 

 others ? 



A. Crops all act differently upon the soil by taking from it different 

 foods or different proportions of food ingredients. Consequently they 

 leave the land in different conditions. Cabbage, for instance, is such a 

 rank feeder that it takes everything it can reach. Spinach the same. 

 Other crops seem to render the soil inert. Millet, for instance, is so slow 

 to cover the land that the soil suffers by exposure to sun, wind and rain; 

 it becomes baked and after the millet is cut off seems almost dead. 



470. Q. What are bulbs ? 

 A. Fleshy buds, generally underground, but sometimes formed on the 



surface. They might be termed abbreviated stems of plants. 



471. Q. What is the reason that wheat and other grains are so valuable ? 

 A. Because of the starch they contain in admixture with nitrogenous 



matter. 



472. Q. Why is a potato called a tuber? 

 A. The natural formation of the potato has to be called something, and 



it might just as well be called a tuber as something else. The word is 

 from a Latin root, to swell. It is an enlarged underground bud. 



473. Q. Do plants breathe ? 

 A. Certainly ; though not exactly in the sense of animal respiration. 



Plants, however, take in air and decompose it, retaining certain portions 

 and rejecting others. 



474. Q. How much water do plants exhale ? 

 A. Wheat, peas, beans, during their season of growth transpire quite 



two hundred times their dry weight of water. An acre of cabbage will 

 transpire in a day over ten tons of water. 



475. Q. To what distance can pollen be carried ? 

 A. Cases are recorded where pollen has been wafted thirty miles. 



476. Q. How long will pollen retain its vitality ? 

 A. Sometimes for months— quite long enough to transport it from one 



country to another. 



477. Q. What are the longest instances of retention of vitality in seeds? 

 A. Seeds of leguminous plants have been known to sprout after being 



kept for sixty years. Rye has been known to sprout after one hundred 

 and forty years. 



478. Q. How can the germination of seeds be stimulated ? 

 A. By soaking in weak chlorine water. 



Sowing Seeds 479. Q. Is it the best policy in sowing small seeds, as turnip, spinach, 

 carrot and beet, to drill on the level or on ridges. 



Bulbs. 



Starch. 



Tubers. 



Inhalatios. 



Exhalation. 



Pollen. 



PoUen. 



Titallty. 



Germination. 



