98 AGRICULTURE. 



ply to the crops of the garden. More may be learned by 

 working among the plants growing in the garden, and at the 

 same time using your eyes. 



What parts of the following plants do we use as food ? Common rad- 

 ishes, horse-radish, cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, celery, artichokes, 

 onions, asparagus, potatoes, rhubarb, and spinach. 



Explain the bleaching out of celery by banking up. Will the stalks 

 bleach out if grown on the level close together ? 



What is the difference between top-onions, potato onions and onion sets? 



Is lettuce an annual or a biennial ? 



Classify the crops given above as annuals, biennials and perennials. 



Are all the blossoms on a cucumber vine alike ? Which produce fruit ? 

 Is the cucumber plant monoecious or dioecious? See page 70. 



THE STRAWBERRY. If you pull off the petals of a rose 

 blossom you find the stalk on which it grew is somewhat 

 enlarged at the end. This little swollen end is called the 

 "receptacle." In the case of the strawberry which we eat, we 

 see a large number of small hard grains in little pits on the 

 surface of the soft, fleshy fruit. If the hard grains were large 

 enough we could open them, and see that each one is a little 

 seed. The part we find so pleasant to eat, then, is not the 

 seed. What is it? By examining 

 the stalks bearing green berries as 

 well as those bearing ripe berries, 

 we observe that it is the swollen end 

 of the stem, that is the receptacle. 

 If a ripe berry is cut in two, the 

 seeds will be found to be connected 

 with the stalk. The strawberry 

 plant is a member of the rose family 

 (rosacece) to which belong a large 



Fig. 44 A strawberry plant V 



properly set out. number of our common fruit-bearing 



plants, as well as some other common plants, such as the plum, 

 the cherry, the strawberry, the raspberry, the blackberry, the 

 wild rose, the hawthorn, the pear, the apple, the quince. 



