THE PLANT 



53 



mellow soil. Then remove the bottom of the box and soak the soil away 

 so as not to break the roots. 



3. To see how biennials feed on their root-store of food, put a Chinese 

 lily bulb in a pan of water in a sunny place. See how as it blooms it 

 ' eats up its own root.' 



4. Girdle a branch of a worthless tree and observe what happens. 



5. Watch flowers and see what are their insect visitors. Can you 

 think of any reason why a bee is a better pollen-bearer than an ant ? 



6. Examine strawberry blossoms to find perfect and imperfect ones. 

 Keep a plant with an imperfect flower covered during blossom time so as 

 to exclude insects. Does it bear fruit? 



ILLUSTRATION OF EXPERIMENT 7 



The three plants on the left are from whole grains of corn ; the three on the right are from 

 grains from which most of the germ food was cut. 



7. Take some grains of corn of about the same size, and from half cut 

 off most of the germ food, being careful to leave the germ uninjured. 

 Plant the grains and observe the difference in germination and growth of 

 the plants from cut and uncut grains. What does this experiment teach 

 as to use of germ food and as to relative value of large and small seeds? 



