56G 
GARDENING FOR CHILDREN. 
trial, for this is far too pretty a plant to be 
lost. Its colours are dark and light blue, 
I think it highly desirable that you should be 
able to carry in your minds a correct general 
idea of the principal parts of a plant, and of 
the use of each part. Willy's table of maxims 
will give you a good deal of information on 
this point, for you will find that every one of 
them contains some practical direction founded 
on what he has learnt, either from reading or 
personal observation, to be a fact. All the 
botany that I wish you to study at present is 
a collection of such facts, and I think you 
will be the better able to recollect them if 
I present them to you in a collected form, 
even although you should discover some of 
them again among the maxims. 
" I will, then, describe the principal parts of a 
plant, and the most remarkable functions of 
each. 
" The Seed. — If you remove the shell and 
inner skin from a hazel-nut or filbert (fig. 1), 
you will find that the kernel 
easily separates into two 
pieces throughout nearly 
its whole extent, being 
held together at the 
smaller end by a small 
body, which tapers to- 
wards each of its extremities. This little 
body is called the germ, and may be corn- 
Fig. 1. 
dark and light pink, blue and white mixed, 
and pink and white mixed." — P. 31. 
" The Parts of a Plant. — I shall now 
enter upon another division of my subject, 
not ' relating entirely to the practice of Gar- 
dening, but nevertheless very important. 
I told you the other day that I should wish 
you to be able to give a reason for every 
gardening operation that you perform. There 
are many gardeners, I fear, who, although they 
work veryindustriously, and keep their gardens 
in excellent order, often fall into great errors 
from not having formed the habit of thinking 
why it is desirable that certain things should 
be done in a particular way, or even why it 
is necessary that they should be done at all. 
The consequence is, that they now and then 
find their crops turn out in a very different 
Avay from what thcj expected, and do not know 
how to set matters to rights on another occa- 
sion. Now I wish you never to rest contented 
with knovynng that it is right for you to do so 
and so, but to find out the reason for the very 
simplest operation. This you will not be able 
to do without being first acquainted, to a certain' 
extent, with the science of botany. I do not 
mean by botany merely the being able to call 
plants by very long and vei'y hard names, of 
Avhich you cannot yet know the meaning ; but 
pared to a bud containing the rudiments of 
a tree like that from which the nut vi^as 
taken. Tlie two larger portions are termed 
the seed-lobes, and contain enough nourish- 
ment to support the young plant until it has 
formed roots and leaves, and is able to pro- 
vide for itself. The kernel, or seed, has no 
tendency in itself to alter its form, if kept 
dry and exposed to light ; but if buried a few 
inches beneath the surface of damp earth, it 
swells and bursts its coverings ; the seed-lobes 
are changed into green fleshy leaves, and be- 
tween them the germ lengthens upwards and 
downwards, expanding first one leaf and then 
