Of what utility to the plant is the fleshy root of beet, turnip, or carrot? When is this root made use of by the plant?
What becomes of the old beet as the plant grows larger and stronger?
What is the natural length of life of an individual beet plant?
Through how many changes of form does it pass? Which of these are "resting" stages?
Give the events in the life history of a beet in chronological order by seasons, beginning with a seed in the spring of 1903, and ending with the first crop of ripened seed.
LEAFLET XLVI.
PRUNING.[63]
By MARY ROGERS MILLER.
You should know how the trees in your school yard have been pruned. Who did the work, nature or a man with a saw? Some people hold to the idea that pruning is unnatural, and therefore should not be practiced. Let us see if this is true. Have you ever gone into the deep woods after a storm? Who has been there, tearing and wrenching at the big limbs, twisting the small branches until the ground is strewn with wreckage? Nature has been pruning a few trees and she works with a fury which is awe-inspiring. But the trees are much the worse for their encounter with the forces they must obey without question. Their branches are broken; mere stubs are left. With the melting snow and the April rains germs of decay are likely to enter at every break in the bark. In a few years the trunk may be weakened and the monarch of the woods lie prone upon the forest floor.