The Practice and Science of Gardening—1
' How the Seeds got into the Packet'
B. A. KEEN , D.Sc.
Last term Dr. B. A. Keen and Mr. C. H. Middleton told you about the soil and how you should prepare it for the growth of plants. This term, in alternate talks, they are to tell you about the plants themselves-how a plant grows from the seed to, say, a ten-week stock, just as the life in an egg develops into a chick that hatches out and grows into a cock or hen.
If you have a garden and look around it, you will find here a tiny marigold, there a small snapdragon, bravely growing from seeds that ripened in the sun last summer, dropped to earth, lay dormant for a while, and germinated in spite of the winter frosts.
Forget-me-nots, pulled up in the summer when they have finished flowering, and shaken over the garden bed, will produce seedlings in such abundance as to be almost a nuisance. But other plants, like the zinnia, are so delicate in infancy that however carefully the seeds are sown and the seedlings cared for, many of them will perish before they have a chance to bear a flower.