COM stock] annual address 3 



crown tubers of beets and turnips there are numerous illustrations 

 to show that roots not only search the soil for food and moisture 

 for the plant but help to hold it in place and that they may act 

 as storehouses for food. Also each species of plant has its own 

 tricks of stem for holding out leaves to the light besides carx-ying 

 sap to the leaves for maturing food and back to place of growth, 

 and they also are storehouses for food, as in the underground 

 stems of the potato. 



The leaf story affords many lessons that should finally reveal 

 to the child something of the mystery and miracle of the bud, the 

 unfolding, and the expanded leaf. And there is a lesson to show 

 that leaves manufacture food for the plant and that they must 

 have sunlight to help them. "A starch factory run by sunshine 

 power and never working over time" is what "Uncle John" called 

 the leaf. 



The flowering plants of a child's garden of but a few square 

 feet afford nature-study lessons of the greatest variety and interest. 

 Why flowers occur at all, the way they occur, their growth from 

 bud to bloom, their hidden ovules, their wide-cast pollen, their 

 colors, their nectar, their tricks for securing cross-fertilization, and 

 finally the growth of the seed within the fading flower, and the 

 perfection and distribution of the seeds are questions to which 

 each species of plant gives different answers. Thus it can never 

 be an old story but one of infinite variety and keen interest. 



In the study of the fertilization of flowers we have the first step 

 toward a knowledge of plant breeding. And, if they will only 

 learn to utilize it, the instructors in sex hygiene have here a sane 

 and impersonal beginning for their instruction. We have known 

 boys who selected seed corn in competitions who had not the 

 faintest idea that the ear bore the pistillate flowers of the plant 

 or that the tassels produced the pollen; and we have known 

 farmer boys who came to the University who had never under- 

 stood why their sweet com mixed with the field com if the two 

 were planted near each other. Once a personal attempt to teach 

 a very intellectual farm lad that each kernel was an ovule and 

 each thread of silk a style, resulted in such a distrust of our teach- 

 ing on his part that he started an investigation for himself and was 

 filled with amazement when convinced of these facts. 



The weeds are most important subjects for nature-study. 

 Each one needs to be studied from seed planted to seed perfected, 



