HEAT OF PLANTS. 149 
very evidently to shew their sensations, if they 
have any; but it is equally true, that some of the 
lowest animal tribes are not superior to them in 
this respect. If it has pleased God in their crea- 
tion really to endow trees with this faculty, un- 
doubtedly it is a gift of love, to enable even this 
portion of His wondrous works to find happiness 
in its being alive; and knowing how widely the 
Great Creator has extended the power of enjoy- 
ment among even the humblest created beings, 
the supposition that it has been granted to plants 
also, may be considered as not one of the most 
improbable in the world. 
Not only are we accustomed to think of plants 
as insensible beings, but we are also apt to con- 
sider them as not possessed of any heat proper to 
themselves, like animal heat in the animal world. 
And perhaps it can be shewn that this is an 
erroneous impression, as well as the other. If 
we expose a glass bottle full of water to a sharp 
winter’s frost, even after taking the precaution of 
covering it with flannel or straw, the water will, 
in all probability, freeze, and burst the bottle ; 
yet the stem of many a young tree exposed to the 
same penetrating cold, and also charged with fluids 
