112 LIVING PLANTS 



plant life ? In the first place, a larger propor- 

 tion germinate, and this evidence of the pos- 

 session of greater strength is followed up by 

 more vigorous growth and the display of in- 

 creased capacity for overcoming obstacles. 

 The resulting plants attain to greater de- 

 velopment, as the size of leaf, length of stem 

 and weight of any part or of the whole plant 

 abundantly proves. It is especially noticeable 

 that in this display of greater vigor both 

 vegetative and reproductive parts are benefit- 

 ted ; and while the individual plants are 

 making a more successful fight in promoting 

 their present welfare, they are enabled to pro- 

 vide more abundantl^^ for the next generation, 

 bj^ producing a better crop of seeds. 



Although the proposition in relation to size 

 of seed, with which we started, has been illus- 

 trated and established so far as present space 

 permits, yet in order to compare more fully 

 the tendency of the powers of the plant derived 

 from the two sources, which for convenience 

 we may call acquired and hereditary, the for- 

 mer coming from food, light, warmth, and 

 other external conditions, and the latter from 

 the energy stored in the seed, it is necessary 

 to bring forward still other data. We may 

 venture to formulate this proposed extension 

 of the law relating to the size of seed thus: large 

 seeds give rise to plants with a greater deve- 



