“Let us go back to the almond. The shell being broken, we come to the seed, which is all in one piece. This seed, as we have just seen, is protected by two coverings, the inner one of which is a very firm, hard casing called the stone. As a protection is it enough? Not quite. Beneath the exterior defensive armor comes the fine inner covering that wraps the seed closely and shields it from contact with the hard shell. This covering is double and is composed on the outside of a reddish skin and inside of an extremely thin and flexible white cuticle. Similar double clothing is found on all seeds. The inner one is always very fine, as indeed it should be, since it comes next to the most essential and delicate part of the seed. Do we put coarse cloth, rough woolen stuff next to the tender flesh of a new-born babe? Certainly not; but rather the finest of linen, and over that the woolen fabric. The plant does the same with its tender young seeds. The outer envelope, much firmer and tougher than the inner, looks very differently in different plants. In the almond and walnut it is a reddish skin, and so it is also in the stones of the peach, apricot, and plum. In the pips of the pear and apple it is a tough brown casing. In beans it is smooth and shiny, sometimes quite white, sometimes black and white, sometimes speckled with red spots. In addition, peas and beans of all kinds have at one point on their surface a sort of little oval eye. To this eye was once attached a small short cord that fastened the seed to the wall of the pod and served as a pipe for supplying it with nourishment. All seeds have this attachment, or nursing-cord, as we may call it, but not all have so clearly marked as in the bean the eye where the cord is fastened. “After the two coverings of the seed have been removed, which is very easily done when the almond is new, there remains a white object, firm and savory, the eatable part of the fruit of the almond-tree. That object is the seed proper; that is to say, the part that would have become a tree if planted in the ground. It is round at one end and rather pointed at the other. From the pointed end projects a little nipple, and all around the edge runs a slight furrow indicating that here the seed may be split in two. Let us insert the point of a knife into this furrow and exert a little pressure. One half will come away and the other half will show us what you see in this picture.