THE 
Peek OF A TREE, 
CHAPTER I. 
THE INFANCY OF A PLANT. 
WuenreE shall we place the cradle of vegetable 
life? Shall I take the reader to the dim shades 
of a Brazilian wood, and, by the side of one of 
those broad rivers which roll their life-teeming 
waters steadily down through thousands of miles 
of vegetable luxuriance, point to the ripe berry 
just dropped into the soft mud, and almost while 
we are looking on, coming to life, and shooting up 
into a great plant? Shall I take him to some 
palm-crowned isle, and, standing on a coral- 
reef, bid him watch the long swell of the great 
Pacific, carrying on its crest a solitary coco-nut, 
