54 
House & Garden 
Photographs by Ur. E. Bade 
Germination of the bean is 
folloieed quickly by an up- 
ivard thrust to the light above 
Tico days later the stern and 
the bean itself are visible 
and assume definite shape 
Another forty-eight hours, 
and the halves of the bean 
shoxo in their role of cotyledons 
The next week sees no great 
increase in height, but the 
leaf development is marked 
PLANT 
FOODS 
D . R . 
AND 
E D S O N 
FEEDING 
Successful gardening means far more than the mere planting of seed or bulb and letting Nature do the rest. 
It is not enough to sow and trust: the underlying principles of plant growth must be understood and followed 
if the best results are to be obtained. The experienced gardener knows this, but fezv beginners do. For the 
inexperienced, then, Mr. Edson has written the series of which this article is the third, with the aim of setting 
down simply and understandably the whole story of the gardening game. — Editor. 
T he mystery of seed germination we have 
already looked into. The seed itself, as 
was e.xplained, supports the little plant for 
some time after it takes form. 
Just when and how does the seedling become 
self-supporting? 
Through the action of the roots, the mechanical 
construction of which we will look into presently, 
moisture is absorbed from the soil, and passes 
along the roots through the main stem, to he 
finally distributed to the leaves of the plant. Be¬ 
fore it begins supporting itself there is an inter¬ 
mediate stage during which the plant food stored 
up in the seed, root-stalk, bnlh, or corm, con¬ 
tributes to its sustenance jointly with the roots. 
It is impossible to tell just when the plant be¬ 
comes “weaned" and is able to do for itself. 
When digging potatoes in the fall, I have fre¬ 
quently found seed pieces, as sound and as plump 
as they were on the day they were planted, still 
attached to a fully developed plant. Some seeds 
quickly disappear entirely; others, such as beans 
and squash, are shoved up above the ground by 
the growing plant and form the fleshy seed-leaves 
or cotyledons as shown in the photographs. 
Before we undertake a study of the food of 
plants—which is, of course, one of the most im¬ 
portant things about which the gardener must 
learn—we should get some insight into the way 
they use it. There are a number of very inter¬ 
esting facts, many of which have been discovered 
only after years of experimenting and scientific 
research, that should be remembered. 
Facts to Remember 
The first thing to fix in mind is that all the 
plant’s food must he taken in liquid form—“in 
solution.” This is the most important fact of all 
to remember, because it affects the whole system 
of cultivation from beginning to end. 
The ne.xt noticealde thing is that a plant “swal¬ 
lows” up instead of down. Of course, it does 
not “swallow” at all in the true .sense of the word; 
but its liquid food, after being taken in, travels 
upward, passing from the tiny root-hairs into the 
little roots on which they grow, then along these 
to the main roots and the stem, and finally is 
distributed through the branches and the side 
branches or shoots to the leaves. 
The third particularly striking thing about plant 
anatomy is that the plant wears its stomach on the 
outside—that is, the food is not digested, as one 
might naturally suppose, in the roots, the stem, or 
the branches, hut merely passes through them to 
the leaves. There it is digested, or rather “elabo¬ 
rated”—that is, chemical changes corresponding 
{Continued on page 68) 
The leaves quickly expand Still another week, and the Upward growth is swift now. The cycle of life nears com- 
and growth continues. The plant begins to take on more Joint after joint develops pletion. The pods of the next 
cotyledons still remain of the appearance of a vine above the first pair of leaves generation are forming 
