HYACINTH BULBS. ji 



Let us glance first at a somewhat simpler case, that of 

 a seed, such as a pea or a grain of wheat. Here we 

 have a little sack of starches and albumen laid up as 

 nutriment for a sprouting plantlet. These rich food- 

 stuffs were elaborated in the leaves of the parent pea, 

 or in the tall haulms of the growing corn. They were 

 carried by the sap into the ripening fruit, and there, 

 through one of those bits of vital mechanism which 

 we do not yet completely understand, they were 

 selected and laid by in the young seed. When the 

 pea or the grain of wheat begins to germinate, under 

 the influence of warmth and moisture, a very slow 

 combustion really takes place. Oxygen from the air 

 combines gradually with the food-stuffs or fuels call 

 them which you will contained in the seed. Thus 

 heat is evolved, which in some cases can be easily 

 measured with the thermometer, and felt by the 

 naked hand as, for example, in the malting of 

 barley. At the same time motion is produced; 

 and this motion, taking place in certain regular 

 directions, results in what we call the growth of a 

 young plant. In different seeds this growth takes 

 different forms, but in all alike the central mechanical 

 principle is the same : certain cells are raised visibly 

 above the surface of the earth, and the motive-power 

 which so raised them is the energy set free by the 

 combination of oxygen with their starches and albu- 

 mens. Of course, here, too, carbonic acid and water 

 are the final products of the slow combustion. The 

 whole process is closely akin to the hatching of an 



