BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



S2ed. The seeds need a covering, it is true. But why should 

 the covering of the apple-seed give the thousand kinds of this 

 delicious fruit, of every tint and flavor, and varied time of 

 ripening ? Why do the pear and peach vie with the apple in 

 the diversified forms and flavors they offer ? Why does the 

 strawberry enlarge its receptacle into that most delicious fruit? 

 Why does the grape bury its seeds in such a luscious pulp, and 

 sometimes form the pulp without the seed ? That the perfection 

 and variety of the soft portion of such fruits play any part in 

 the economy of the plant, no one will probably contend. The 

 pulp of the grape represents to man so much food. If it forms 

 without seed, it is the cause of no indirect injury, as the filling 

 of wheat grains without the germ would be, because it never 

 represents new plant-life. If the soft fruits have no purpose 

 except to cover the seed, their increase in size and improvement 

 in flavor are a mistake. The native apple, in all its harshness ; 

 the frost grapes, which the animals allow to fall with their seeds 

 untouched, unless driven to eat them or starve ; the peach, in 

 its hard covering, and the button-pear, which no cooking can 

 fully conquer : all these are for the plant the perfection of fruits. 

 Such fruits perfect and protect their seeds. But our Black 

 Eamburghs and Sweetwaters, our Pippins and Bartletts, are 

 mistakes, and evidences of want of creative design in such plants, 

 if they have no end out of themselves : for all these variations 

 from the original stock either weaken the seed or invite to its 

 destruction. Because they are of no advantage to the plant, 

 must we grant that they are are a mistake or without signifi- 

 cance ".' By no means. Nor do we think it possible for the 

 majority of men ever to believe that we have not here a direct 

 provision for the animal kingdom as a whole, and for man in 

 particular ; a provision that shows Avisdom, though through it 

 plant-life is made entirely secondary. The continuance of each 

 species of plants must be provided for by some moans, or its 

 creation would be a failure. This being done, sometimes by 

 one method and sometimes by another, all the remaining parts 

 of the plant may be modified for the benefit of this higher king- 

 dom. It seems to us that all these modifications indicate this 

 ulterior purpose, to which the interests of the plant, so to speak, 

 are made to yield. We have no doubt, indeed, tin 1 three king- 

 doms of nature are all arranged with reference to man. especially 



