302 ON THE MATURATION OF GRAIN 



does SO. The very foundation of the future 

 grain is laid under exactly parallel circumstances, 

 and under similar conditions to those required 

 for the developement of the future plant it con- 

 tains ; so that if sugar be wanted, as among the 

 grasses, it must be secured during the epoch of 

 their flowering, just as it is during the epoch of 

 germination in the malting of grain. 



When the ovules of each grain have been thus 

 fecundated, and the germ of independent vitality 

 introduced into them, then fructification, properly 

 so called, commences. The sugar in excess is 

 absorbed, and gradually commuted into other 

 matter, such as forms the nucleus of the seed. 

 Carbon again is appropriated, and the ovules 

 swell out into grain by drawing upon the stock 

 of provisions within the blades and culms. And, 

 as no carbon can be appropriated but under the 

 direct influence of sunshine and daylight, the 

 direct action of light and of air is essential to the 

 thorough fructification of the grain. Whatever 

 precludes the one or the other of the two, checks 

 fructification, and maturation never succeeds. It 

 is owing to this interference with both light and 

 air, that grain cannot properly ripen under trees 

 and tall fences. Trees belong to woods and 



