A dry seed looks as if it were dead. But there is life there, shut up in that prison-house. It is very quiet as long as it is shut up. But once let it out, and it does great things. An apple-seed, with its stout brown covering, is a very little thing. It does not look as if any thing could ever come from it. But if it gets into the ground, the moisture swells it, the covering bursts, and an apple-tree comes from the seed. And you know the Bible tells us, a tree large enough for the fowls of the air to lodge in its branches comes from the little mustard-seed.
Life asleep in seeds.
The city buried up with lava.
The life in the dry seed is asleep. Put it into the moist ground, and this life wakes up. This sleep of seeds sometimes lasts a great while. Commonly we keep them only from one year to another. But sometimes they are kept a long time in their state of sleep. I will tell you a story about this: Many hundred years ago there came a great stream of lava, as it is called, down from a mountain. It was all on fire, and looked like a stream of melted iron. It rolled over a city and covered it up. All the inhabitants were killed. When the lava cooled, people came to look for the city, but could not find any of it. But lately, people have dug down through the lava, and opened passages into this covered-up city. They have gone into the houses, and have found many things just as they were when the red-hot lava ran over the city.Some seeds were found. These were planted; and they sprung up just as seeds do that have been kept only from one year to another. The life in these seeds, then, had been asleep for many hundred years.
Many seeds from one.
A great many seeds come from one seed put into the ground. From a single kernel of corn come several ears full of kernels. The kernels or seeds from one single ear are enough to plant quite a large piece of ground. We use most of the corn for food, for we need to keep but little of it for seed. So we eat most of the beans that we raise. We keep only a little bag of them for planting the next year. As you look at the little bag, you would hardly think that it holds what will cover long rows of poles with vines. There is a great deal of life asleep for the winter in that bag.
Many destroyed.
Most of the seeds that drop from trees and plants are killed, and they decay on the ground with the leaves. It is only now and then that a seed lives and takes root. If all seeds lived and sprung up we should have too many things growing every where. If all the acorns lived, and got into the ground, and took root, there would be too many oaks. And so of other trees and plants. The seeds that are scattered on the ground have to take their chance, as we say. Some out of the whole live through the winter in some way, and come up in the spring.
Questions.—What is said of life in the seed? What wakes it up? Can the sleep of seeds sometimes last a great while? Tell about the seeds from a city that was covered up with lava. What is said of the number of seeds that come from one seed? What becomes of the seeds of plants and trees that fall to the ground?
Questions.—What is said of life in the seed? What wakes it up? Can the sleep of seeds sometimes last a great while? Tell about the seeds from a city that was covered up with lava. What is said of the number of seeds that come from one seed? What becomes of the seeds of plants and trees that fall to the ground?