KEPORTS OF LOCAL SOCIETIES. 203 



the form of water or in soils rich in aninionia, whicli enters largely into the 

 essentials of healthy plant growth. They creep here and there as certainly as 

 if they could taste or smell. A slender white thread will become the pipe 

 through which the gleanings of millions of roots may pass. There are plants 

 ■which can be fed like animals, — indeed they can catch animal food and digest 

 it. I^t us try to imagine the degree of sensibility in a creature which is alive, 

 Avhich eats and drinks, which sleeps and wakes, catches and digests animal 

 food, which follows a scent, takes notice of light, chooses the useful and dis- 

 cards the noxious elements, and knows the seasons as well as most animals. 



Can it be that we cause pain when we pluck a rose ; that a tree reallv groans 

 when it is felled ; that the fabled Dryads of mythological lore were but a glim- 

 mering of the truth; that trees and plants have life, are inhabited by a sense, 

 not indeed as large as that of animals, whose eyes answer ours with kindly 

 intelligence, but an ethereal something which we have yet to become conscious 

 of. They rejoice in their marriage time of bud and flower. Out of that time 

 of beauty and bloom will there grow for us a truth which shall be like the 

 laws which govern the stars in the sky, a new revelation of order, of symme- 

 try, and of infinite love. The truth is always very near us. If we could but: 

 touch the spark of life which eludes us so constantly, we should have the key 

 to the whole. Is the life of a plant like that of an animal? How can we 

 know? If we break the casket the subtle essence escapes us. The mystery is 

 not for our minds to solve. The Creator of all holds the key as lie also holds 

 the lives of all in His hand. 



