“Be you young or be you old, there’s nothin’ sets you thinkin’ like a seed.” [Illustration: FIG. 92] A SCHOOLROOM GARDEN (_Concluded_) The picture at the top of this page (Fig. 92) shows you how the young squash plant comes into the world; for you remember that in my pot garden I planted some squash seeds. And I hope that in your schoolroom garden you will watch this plant as it makes its first appearance. The baby food of the squash vine, like that of the bean, is stored away inside the seed leaves, which on this account are so large that they quite fill the seed shell. They are not so thick as those of the bean, but thick enough to hold all the nourishment that is needed to keep the young plant alive and hearty until it is big enough to shift for itself. Very soon after this seed is laid in warm, moist earth, its little plant begins to grow too large for the seed shell, and the white stem is pushed out through the hole you notice at one end of the seed. This stem forces its way into the earth below, and puts out a root, and root fingers. And now its upper part begins to lengthen out and to straighten itself. In doing this, it pulls the two seed leaves right out of the seed coat. If it fails at once to get rid of the seed coat, it lifts this up into the air, on top of its leaves. [Illustration: FIG. 93] Often the young maple tree comes into the world in this way, carrying its seed coat on top of its seed leaves. The maple is another plant that packs its baby food within the seed leaves instead of round about them. Perhaps your teacher has saved for you some maple keys (Fig. 93), as the fruit of the maple tree is called. If you split open a maple key, you will find hidden within one of its halves (Fig. 94) the beautiful baby tree. This is folded away so neatly that one is tempted to split open one key after another, for the pleasure of unpacking other delicate baby maples (Fig. 95). [Illustration: FIG. 94] But now let us find out what has happened to the peas which I planted. [Illustration: FIG. 95] Peas seem to us so much like beans, that perhaps you think the young pea baby comes into the world in the same way as the bean plant; but surely we have nothing here that looks at all like the bean plant. We see some stems having small, thin, green leaves. Where are the fat seed leaves, filled with the baby food that keeps the plant alive? They are not in sight, certainly, so we must start a hunt for them. If you will carefully remove the earth from about this little pea plant, you will soon find that the pea seed from which it is growing lies buried in the earth (Fig. 96). This pea seed, like that of the bean, is made up chiefly of what really are two seed leaves, although in the case of the pea it may seem only as a matter of politeness that we give them the name of “leaves;” for in the pea these seed leaves lie buried in the earth, and split open just enough to allow the little pea plant to grow up into the air.