On the Natural History of Vegetables * 165 



Art. IX. On the Natural History of Vegetables, By Mentor. 



Sir, 



As the names, qualities, and peculiarities of plants, both 

 indigenous and exotic, will frequently occupy your pages (and 

 which will be highly useful and pleasing to your young read- 

 ers who may be fond of plants), it has occurred to me that a 

 short series of papers on vegetable physiology will not be 

 altogether unsuitable for your work. In doing this, I do not 

 mean to keep the old beaten track of scientific physiology, 

 which would only be a kind of transcript of books of far higher 

 authority than any thing that I dare pretend to bring forward 

 on the subject. But in thus leaving the old road, I shall not 

 be misled by the hand-posts of theoretic directors, but be at 

 perfect liberty to follow where Nature leads ; and, as she ap- 

 pears divested of the verbiage and trappings of science, plainly 

 describe what long experience has acquired, and extensive 

 practice has confirmed. 



I am far from inferring from this that scientific terminology 

 should be banished from your periodical. This would be 

 Vandalism indeed ; and would detract from its merits as well 

 as contract its circulation. But in the case of botanical physio- 

 logy, a science which every young countryman (many of whom 

 will be your readers) should thoroughly understand, the sub- 

 ject is often obscured by a redundance of terms, and the 

 abstruse language in which it is described. I intend, there- 

 fore, in these papers to use the plainest language I can : it will 

 be most natural to myself, and I hope will be sufficiently clear 

 to the reader. 



It will be a kind of natural arrangement to begin with a 

 description of the 



Hoot, -—When a seed is placed in the soil in a favourable 

 situation, it swells, bursts its shell, if it has one, and its skin, 

 and protrudes its radicle spur in a downward direction. Its 

 first shape, if that of a tree or other large seed, is a blunt 

 cone. The centre progressively protruding, becomes more 

 taper, till the point ends in a slender and very delicate thread ; 

 and continues to extend itself in a direction which the con- 

 stitution or quality of the soil allows. From other seeds, 

 especially those of herbaceous plants, not one, but a tuft of 

 slender fibres is produced from the under side of the heart, 

 or vital point of the seed ; these extend themselves in all direc- 

 tions, and also tending downwards. All underground roots 

 are composed of, or are furnished with, slender fibres. They 

 are the organs by which the principal part of the watery and 

 aerial nourishment of the plant is received. To be capable of 



