Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1908-08-29
SHORT LESSONS FOR BOYS
How Plants Get Started and
Maintain Their Growth to
Seed Time and Harvest.
BY HIRAM H. SHEPARD,
Author of nTife on +ba Ear,,, ',

Author OF Life on the Farm"
Plants are living things. They come
INTO life, eat, breathe, digest their food
grow. rest and finally die.
They struggle for life and are all
aftected by heat, light, moisture, foods
and bodily injury.
In fact plants manifest all the pow
ers of life except knowing and think
ing. They have no minds and hence
cannot know and think
Yet IN some cases they seem to know,
for they will grow toward and reach
Tor the light, and they will send their
roots in the direction of the greatest
supply of moisture.
Some plants are sensitive and will
fold their leaves when touched.
Plants have no feet and cannot walk,
neither can all animals walk Sponges
and many of the lower animals remain
nXed to one place during life and re-
celve their food as it is brought to them
by the water in which they live.
In this respect plants and some of
the lower animals are alike, being fixed
TO one place and having their food
brought to them.
Some plants do actually move from
place to place. Their moving is slow
but 1t is sure. The May apple, Solo
mons seal, blackberry and roses are
examples of plants that move from
place to place under the ground
They move by means of their under
ground stems Which continually push
through the soil in search of richer
and better homes.
Inc deWberry, strawberry and grape
are examples of plants that move on
the surface of the ground searching for
new and better homes and at intervals
sending down roots to fix their new
locations.
Plants live by eating and drinking
just as we and other animals do.
But they eat and drink in a different
way from animals.
Plants are said to drink with their
roots and eat with their leaves. Hence
instead of having one mouth they have
many mouths, or openings, for receiv-
ing food.
The feeding roots of plants not only
e1ink up, or absorb, easily dissolved
plant foods in the soil, but they give
out, or secrete, acids for the dissoIving
OF SOIL particles that water alone can
not dissolve
Ihey try to draw out of the soil all
the food it holds. And although they
are able TO do this, yet plants will grow
much better in soil that holds much
easily dissolved foods.
SOL which contains a great deal of
easily dissolved plant food is called |
FERTILE soil. If the soil in which our
plants grow is not fertile we can make
1t fertile by enriching or fertilizing it
with cleanings from the stable or poul
try house.
SOIL fertilizers may also be pur-
chased of supply houses These kinds
are called commercial fertilizers.
The plant, as you likely know, is
maze UP OF many different things, ele-
menus and compounds. Hence it's roots
must absorb great many kinds of
plant foods from the soil to satisfy it's
needs.
The names Of some of these elements
Wn1cn the roots must absorb and carry
up to the plant are long and hard to
understand.
ct these names are important to the
young farmer or gardener, and should
be learned by all who expect to make
success at growing plants.
Here are the names: Phosphorus.
potasslmsn, iron, sodium, calcium, chlor-
Inc, silicon, sulphur, nitrogen, oxygen
and few others.
1t may be that you already know of
these Clements. The reason that Won
40 not know all of them is that in
nature they are not free and separate
eielnents but combined with other ele-
ments forming compounds.
Soulum and chlorine, for instance
combined, form the well-known COM
pound, common salt. Calcium COM
bined with oxygen forms our common
limestone
1t can readily be seen then that the
ieedlhg roots of plants are kept very
busy in the soil AS the plant grows
they must push out and down in all
directions, completely filling the soil
Tor great distance from the base of
the plant.
For this reason we separate culti-
Vated plants into rows several feet
apart. II large number of seeds Of
corn are planted in one place all NAV
sprout and form plants.
But as these crowded corn n,,,ts
pegln TO grow the many roots of the
many plants soon drink up all of the
nearby foods. {
In consequence none Of the plants
are able to grow large and produce t
ears of corn. l
Since plants have very many mouths {
no one of these mouths needs to he
very large. They are, indeed. very
small-so small that we cannot see
them with the naked eye.
o