. New elementary agriculture for rural and graded schools; an elementary text book dealing with the plants, insects, birds, weather, and animals of the farm . Staminate flower of the WHAT IS A PLANT AND WHAT IS IT DOING? feet shower ofpollen. And eachyoung kernel ofcorn is a pistilwhich is to ripeninto a singleseed; each ker-nel has a longslender tube, thesilk, reachingout to get thegrains of pollen,one silk fromeach kernel ofthe ear. Nowwe see whythe stamens areput at the verytop of the plantinstead of closeto the ovary, asthey are in theapple - blossom;since the corn-blossoms haveneither the
. New elementary agriculture for rural and graded schools; an elementary text book dealing with the plants, insects, birds, weather, and animals of the farm . Staminate flower of the WHAT IS A PLANT AND WHAT IS IT DOING? feet shower ofpollen. And eachyoung kernel ofcorn is a pistilwhich is to ripeninto a singleseed; each ker-nel has a longslender tube, thesilk, reachingout to get thegrains of pollen,one silk fromeach kernel ofthe ear. Nowwe see whythe stamens areput at the verytop of the plantinstead of closeto the ovary, asthey are in theapple - blossom;since the corn-blossoms haveneither theshowy petals and penetrating fragrance to attract the bee, nor thehoney to reward her services, the corn plant must de-pend upon some other helper which does not care forhoney, and this time it is the wind. When the pollen. Fig. 8. Pistillate flower of the com. 14 NEW ELEMENTARY AGRICULTURE sacs are ripe, and just at the same time the silkshave pushed out their ends from the tip of theyoung ear, the pollen dust may be found for afew days flying thick about the field. The tasselsare high up where they can catch the breeze; or,if the wind does not blow, the pollen can at least fallupon the ears of the same plant. So the pollen reachesthe young silks and usually enough of it to fertilizealmost every kernel in the ear. This is always a criticaltime in the life of the corn plant; sometimes a few daysof hot, dry winds just at this season will wither up themoist tips of the silks before they can catch the pollen,and in that case the kernels of corn will not mature;and although the stalk and leaves of the corn may begreen and the plant may look quite thrifty, there willbe no good ears of corn, and both the corn plant andthe farmer will feel that their labor has come to the Young Plant a Fair Chance
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectagriculture, bookyear
