go Life and Love. 



producing curious effects known as " yellow days " 

 or " red days." 



Fortunately, the presence of the wrong pollen 

 has no effect upon the flower ; otherwise the stray 

 grains from all sorts of plants borne by wind and 

 insect would produce such confusion in the vege- 

 table world by fertilizing lilies with roses, or pop- 

 pies with morning-glories, that nothing would be 

 able to keep its own form. Nearly related plants 

 can sometimes fertilize one another, however, and 

 if the farmer wants good melons he must be care- 

 ful not to let pumpkins or cucumbers grow near 

 the melon-patch ; otherwise the busy bees going 

 from pumpkin to melon may fertilize the melon 

 with pumpkin pollen and the result be a sort of 

 pumpkin-melon not at all agreeable to the taste. 



As is the case with some insects, the plant often 

 grows and stores up nutriment for a time, finally to 

 expend the whole stock so accumulated in one vast 

 effort of reproduction. 



Plants with succulent roots, as radishes, turnips, 

 carrots, and beets have this habit. Sometimes one 

 whole growing season is devoted to storing up a 

 great root full of starch and other foods ; then 

 winter comes, and the plant dies above ground, 

 but lives below. Next season the beet or turnip 

 sends up leaves and flower-stalk with remarkable 

 speed. The growth is luxurious and prodigious, 

 and abundant bloom is followed by the maturing 

 of many seeds. 



