THE PLOWBB 95 



6. The purpose of a flower. Then you try once 

 more : "Is a flower, then, a part of the plant that 

 makes pollen in order to make seed ?" Yes, now we 

 have it. The purpose of the flower is to make seed. 

 It may have no colour and no scent and yet be a 

 flower if it can only make seed. 



7. If a plant could live for itself alone, what would 

 become of next year's crop of plants ? The plant's time 

 comes to wither and die ; and it makes seed so that, 

 next year, the fields and gardens may be as beautiful 

 as they are to-day. Yes, that is the flower's secret ; 

 to pass on its life to its children. 



8. Where are the plants of last year ? The wheat- 

 plants of last spring have gone, and even the stubble 

 has been turned over by the plough ; but the wheat- 

 plants of next spring sleep safely in the golden grain 

 that the farmer has stored away for seed. Your poppies 

 have long since withered away — flowers and leaves and 

 root — but next year's poppies lie safely hidden in the 

 little packet of seed which you took from the poppy- 

 flowers. 



9. Many are the plans of the flowers for making 

 seed. Already you have seen that the various plants 

 have various ways of making seed. Some use bright 

 colours to help them ; others have no colour at all. 

 Some make use of scent ; others are scentless. Some 

 use insects as carriers of the pollen ; others use birds ; 

 and still others use the wind. Some flowers, again, 

 like chickweed, use neither insects nor the wind, 

 because they are able to dust their own seed-case with 

 their own pollen. Most of the plants with green 

 flowers or with very small coloured flowers use their 

 own pollen. 



