i 3 o THE SCHOOL GARDEN BOOK 



cellar or room. They are simply placed upon tables or 

 shelves or benches exposed to the light and air, and the 

 sprouts allowed to develop for two or three weeks. They 

 are then planted very carefully out-doors, special precautions 

 being taken not to break the sprouts off the tubers. With 

 the start thus given the plants come up very quickly and 

 grow rapidly, producing eatable tubers earlier than other 

 potatoes planted at the same time in the usual way. This is 

 one of the simplest and easiest experiments which school 

 gardeners can undertake. 



SEED-LEAVES OR COTYLEDONS 



The pictures on the next page tell a story whicn you can 

 easily read in the life of any tomato plant that you grow 

 from the seed. You plant the seed in a warm room in 

 moist soil and it soon comes up as a little seedling with two 

 erect leaves folded flat against each other, and often bearing 

 on their tips the tiny seed coat. Almost as soon as they 

 come up these seed-leaves spread out horizontally and con- 

 tinue to increase in size for several days. Then, if you look 

 closely at the plant, you will see one or two tiny leaves ap- 

 pearing from between the bases of these seed-leaves, or 

 cotyledons as they are sometimes called. As these later 

 appearing leaves increase in size you will soon see that they 

 are very different from the seed-leaves in form, and you will 

 find that the seed-leaves no longer grow larger. The other 

 leaves, however, grow rapidly and soon take on an appear- 

 ance similar to that of an ordinary well developed tomato 

 leaf, and are followed by other leaves that appear from the 

 top of the plant. The seed-leaves, however, are gradually 

 becoming of a paler color and will finally droop downward, 



