452 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Noy., 1901. 
Agriculture. 
FIRST STEPS IN AGRICULTURE. 
2nd Lesson. 
SECOND STAGE. 
By A. J. B. 
I must now explain to you how our plant takes up solid food. It does it 
in exactly the same manner in which a little baby takes it up. When you see 
a baby sucking milk out of a bottle, you would not imagine that it is taking in 
solid food. You say the baby is drinking. But just think for a moment what 
solid things we get from milk. They are cheese, butter, and curds. What do 
you think would happen to the baby if it were compelled to eat curds and 
cheese? The baby would probably die, because it is not yet strong enough to 
eat anything solid. But all these solid foods are contained in the milk in 
another form. To show you that this is so, I take this glass of water, and stir 
into it a teaspoonful of salt, another of soda, another of sugar, another of ~ 
alum. Now, I have stirred all these solid things into the water, I will allow it 
to rest for a while. What doyou see now? Can you find the sugar, the soda, 
the salt, or the alum? Is the water not as clearas before? What has become 
of our solids? They have melted and become so mixed with the water that 
they cannot be seen. They are said to be “dissolved” in it. You must. 
remember this word because I shall often have occasion to use it as we go on. 
Dissonvep is a better word to use than MELTED, because when we melt any 
substance we still see the substance, no matter how much water we add to it. 
You melt things by the help of fire. Thus you melé butter, you melt lead to 
make bullets and sinkers for fishing. But you always have the melted substance 
before you, and if you allow it to cool, it becomes solid lead or butter just as it 
was before melting. But when you dissolve anything in water, the thing 
disappears and is so mixed up with the water that it becomes part of it, because 
it has broken up into very tiny grains quite invisible to your eye. 
Well, the. water sucked up by the plant contained solid plant food dissolved 
in it, and the plant is thus able to take it up in the water, just as the baby 
takes solid food dissolved by nature in the milk. 
IT have thus shown you that the plant obtains its food from three places. 
First from the seed; secondly, from the water; thirdly, from the soil. But 
the little plant is not satisfied with the food from the seed and soil. It wants 
another kind of food which can only be got out of the air. Look round you. 
Can you see the air? No, but you know it is there. You can tell that by 
waving your hand about, or by blowing at alighted candle. You feel somethin 
cool moving over your hand. You see the flame of the candle blown about by 
your breath. It is the air in motion that causes this. 
Now let us light a small tire. There, it bursts into flame. And see what 
a quantity of smoke goes up from it. Just watch that smoke for a little. I¢ 
has gone you say. But where has it gone to? I willtell you. What you call 
smoke is really only steam and little tiny bits of the wood which have not quite 
burnt away. That smoke falls at last to the ground in the shape of water and 
charcoal, and goes to make plant food. Try and remember the word carbon, 
But besides the smoke there is something else which comes from the fire, and 
that is gas. This gas youcannot see. You know that when gas is turned on 
in a house, you can smell it, but you cannot see it, and it is because people 
cannot see it that often very terrible accidents happen when a lighted candle 
has been taken into a room full of gas which has escaped. 
