MISSOURI VALLEY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY REPORT. 133 



it is formed, what brings it to life, what it is, is unknown. Sun and 

 water brings life out of a dry seed if the germ is not killed. Heat and 

 moisture seem to say to all seeds, ''Come, show yourself," and at once 

 they start into activity. 



Did you ever see the live oats? Take some of them, wet them in 

 warm water, and in a few moments, holding them in the warm hand, 

 they will begin to show life. The workings and twistings, the legs 

 throwing themselves out this way and that until they finally turn 

 clear over and over They will go again and again. Keep them damp 

 and warm and they keep at work as if endowed with life. 



What is this life, we know not. How does it show itself no one can 

 tell. Where does the vegetable end and the animal begin, is a ques- 

 tion hard to answer. 



The swelling of the life germ produces a motion imperceptible to 

 us, but just as positive as is the motion in the animal, and that when 

 growth begins this motion begins. Scientists call this first principle 

 of growth or life in the plant, protoplasm. This is only observable by 

 the aid of the most powerful microscope, and is the lowest form of life, 

 just as an atom is the lowest form of matter. 



Protoplasm is the life, then, of all growth, and what seems stranger 

 than all, this life is of itself capable of motion, and in the vegetable 

 cells it is the life principle. It is also capable of subdivision and that 

 of itself, so that growth is formed by this division of this life growth, 

 and that continuously forming the life of the cells of the plants and 

 thus the growth is continually forming. 



Stranger still is it that this protoplasm is the life principle in the 

 lower forms of animals, and even of man himself, and stranger than 

 all seems to be the fact that there is no power of the microscope so 

 great as to be able to separate this life so as to be able to distinguish it. 

 Take this life principle and no one is able to tell what shall proceed 

 from it — vegetable, bird or man. Animal life, even to that of man, 

 seems to be exactly the same as that of vegetable life. Protoplasm is 

 the germ of all life, and in all the vegetable life this is the life princi- 

 ple — this is the growth or cause of growth. 



Some of the lower animal life is like the vegetable — can be dried 

 up and kept so for years, and as soon as heat and moisture are applied 

 they seem to start into life just as the germ of the seed does. 



Heat and moisture seem to bring this protoplasm to life, and from 

 its own power of motion and of division we have the growth of the 

 animal as well as the vegetable kingdom. 



In all vegetable growfh we have the cell formation plainly seen, 

 and this protoplasm is the life in the center of the cells. These cells 



