l6o THE STORY OF THE PLANTS. 



can start their sons well in life with a good be- 

 ginning. On the other hand, the poppy has to 

 set out on its career with a very poor equipment ; 

 it must begin picking up carbonic acid for itself 

 almost from the outset. Such plants are like 

 street arabs, compelled to shift as best they can 

 from their earliest days. A coco-nut starts so 

 well that the young palm can grow to a consider- 

 able size without working for itself; so to a less 

 degree do walnuts, hazels, and oak-trees. Among 

 other sets of plants there are tw^o great groups 

 which have especially learned to lay by foods for 

 their seedlings — the peaflower family and the 

 grasses. In both these cases the young plants 

 start in life with exceptional advantages. But 

 what will feed a young plant will also feed an 

 animal. Hence men live largely in different 

 countries off such richly-stored seeds — among 

 nuts, the coco-nut, the chestnut, and the walnut ; 

 among peaflower seeds, the pea, the bean, the 

 vetch, the lentil ; among grasses, wheat, rice, 

 barley, Indian corn, rye, millet. 



Recollect, however, that in all these cases the 

 plant does not desire the seed to be eaten. It 

 stored the tissues richly for its own sake and its 

 offspring's alone, and we come and rob it. So, 

 too, with the edible roots or tubers, such as 

 potatoes, yams, turnips, beet-root, and so forth ; 

 the plant meant to use them for its own future 

 growth ; man appropriates them and disappoints 

 its natural expectations. It is quite different 

 with the succulent fruits, like the date and the 

 plantain, which form in many countries the staple 

 food of great populations ; nature meant those to 

 be eaten by animals, and offered the pulp in re- 

 turn for the benefit of dispersion. 



