First, I filled a pot with finely sifted earth, and planted the different seeds; then I filled a glass with water, floated some cotton wool upon its surface, and in this wool laid some beans; and then my garden planting was done. During the following days I kept the earth in the pot slightly moist. The cotton wool in the glass of water did this for itself. And how carefully I watched my two little gardens! For three days the pot of earth kept its secret. Nothing happened there, so far as I could see. But the beans that were laid upon the cotton wool grew fat and big by the second day, just like those that your teacher soaked over night; and by the third day their seed coats had ripped open a little way, just as your coat would rip open if it were tightly buttoned up and suddenly you grew very fat; and out of the rip in the seed coat peeped a tiny white thing, looking like the bill of a chick that is pecking its way out of the eggshell which has become too small to hold it. Very quickly this little white tip grew longer. It curved over and bent downward, piercing its way through the cotton wool into the water. [Illustration: FIG. 88] About this time the pot garden began to show signs of a disturbance. Here and there I saw what looked like the top of a thick green hoop (Fig. 88). What had happened, do you think? Why, first this bean had sucked in from the damp earth so much water that it had grown too fat and big for the seed coat; and it had torn this open, just like the other bean, pushing out its little white tip; and this tip had bent down into the earth and taken a good hold there, lengthening into a real root, and sending out little root hairs that fastened it down still more firmly. But it was not satisfied to do all its growing below. Its upper part now straightened itself out, and started right up into the air. From a hoop it turned into a stem which lifted the bean clear above the earth (Fig. 89). This bean was no longer the round object we usually call by that name; for its two halves had opened and spread outward, and from between these two halves grew a pair of young leaves. [Illustration: FIG. 89] As these leaves grew larger, the two half-beans began to shrink, growing smaller and more withered all the time (Fig. 90). Why was this, do you suppose? To make clear the reason of this, to show just why the two halves of the bean grew smaller as the rest of the young bean plant grew larger, I must go back a way. Turn to the picture of the peony seed (Fig. 84). There you can see how the baby plant is packed away in the midst of a quantity of baby food. And in the picture of the morning-glory seed (Fig. 86) you see the same thing. You remember that day by day the baby plant ate more and more of this food, and kept growing stronger and bigger, and that all this time the store of food kept growing smaller and smaller. Now, if you cut open the bean, you do not see a tiny plant set in the midst of a store of food.