FIELD NOTES IN SEED TIME. 221 



it and other plants, " and to live like rational men, 

 and not like brutes." 



Nature has her arithmetic as well, and whispers 

 it to every stalk of maize. As if by the process of 

 calculation the ranks of kernels are invariably 

 arranged along the pithy receptacle in even num- 

 bers. Eight, ten, twelve, fourteen, eighteen, twenty, 

 and so on — as many as forty rows in some 

 varieties have been counted. Disrobe this long 

 spike, carefully noting the manner in which the 

 beautifully pink-tinted husks overlap each other, 

 and the soft, silky texture of those growing next 

 the corn. How accurately placed are the grains 

 on the cob, each one almost as firmly set as a tooth 

 in the gum. Their crowns are rounded and 

 brightly polished, and their sides and edges regu- 

 larly beveled to fit into their sockets. At the 

 base of each kernel is a little cavity or pit in a 

 radial line from the centre of the cob, and always 

 on the side toward its tip, that contains the embryo 

 plant. From these still adhere the long silken fil- 

 aments that hang out from the point of the husks, 

 now in a brownish tuft, but freshly green last 

 summer, when on the tips of these delicate fibres 

 dropped the pollen grains from the tassels above, 

 and taking a kind of root or tube sank down, 



