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MR. MAIN'S VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY*. 



WE have been much pleased both with the manner and the matter of 

 this work, which bears the impress of personal observation, of a love for 

 truth, and of a desire to write intelligibly upon subjects which a fantas- 

 tical misguided taste so usually bedizens with pedantic jargon, and what 

 is worse, mocks the understanding with the unreal seeming of sounding 

 words instead of things, and with fancies instead of facts. Several of 

 these fashionable gew-gaws may be seen in the ALPHABET OF BOTANY, 

 second edition, and in the ALPHABET OF SCIENTIFIC GARDENING, 

 stript of their meretricious finery and exhibited in their proper naked- 

 ness, and Mr. Main has, in several^places of the work before us, argued 

 judiciously against the fanciful doctrine of rooting buds, though- we are 

 sorry to say that his own doctrine of the life of a plant being a " distinct 

 member " is out of all doubt a fancy no less void of foundation. This 

 fancy, however, it may be well to remark, is by no means the staple of 

 the book, and is only a sort of episode which may amuse the ingenious 

 that are fond of speculation ; and as it is not likely to be ever adopted to 

 any extent, more than the organic vortices of Baron Cuvier, we may 

 consider it as a piece of innocent pleasantry, at the risk, mayhap, of 

 the worthy author not much relishing this view of the subject, for he 

 has evidently written in good and sober earnest respecting this new 

 " distinct member " in plants, termed by him the " life," which he 

 alleges is situated in some inscrutable space between the bark and the 

 wood. We say " inscrutable," for he does not, so far as we can find, 

 pretend to have ever either seen or touched this " distinct member," 

 and we may thence justly infer that it is as invisible, intangible, and 

 consequently as unreal as Cuvier's vortices, or the spirit of the scholastic 

 philosophers, which does not exist in place but ubi. It will be but fair, 

 however, to allow the excellent author to give his own evidence in this 

 matter, and we cannot select a better passage for this purpose than the 

 following. 



" The foregoing idea of the existence of a distinct vital member, whence all new 

 accretions proceed, is directly opposed to the modern doctrine of the " organisable 

 property " of the elaborated sap of plants. The idea is founded upon the general 



* Illustrations of Vegetable Physiology, practically applied to the Cultivation of 

 the Garden, the Field and the Forest, consisting of original Observations collected 

 during an Experience of fifty Years. By James Main, A. S. L. 



