NATURE TEACHING 



CHAPTER I 



THE SEED 



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IN all agricultural and gardening work, seeds are so 

 constantly employed for the purpose of raising new 

 crops that every one is more or less familiar with 

 them. 



We know, as the result of experience, that if we sow 

 seeds we shall in the course of time obtain young plants 

 or seedlings, and that these, if properly looked after, 

 will grow into large plants, and in due course flower and 

 bear seeds themselves, from which a second crop of 

 plants can be raised. This order of events is the same 

 whether our experience has been gained by growing 

 poppies, mignonette, hollyhocks, etc., in the garden, or 

 wheat, turnips, and clover in the field, or whether we 

 have been practically engaged in starting a new oak 

 wood from acorns. 



We have learnt also, as the result of our experience, 

 that each seed has apparently hidden away in it the 

 beginnings of a new plant of the same kind as that from 



A 



