404 Oil the Seed oj Hants. 



ThU, however, is directly contrary to the rciults of the txpc-" 

 riments above quoted, and to the experience of every practical 

 man, who has been guided by the intuitive suggestions of hit 

 own feelings in preference to the rules of mechanical writers. 



20, Bentinck-strcct, May 'lb, 1818. 



LXIX. On the Seeds of Plants, i?^ Jfn. Agnks Iebetson. 



To Mr. Tillodi. 



Sir, — J\1y object, it is well known, is to simplify my subject, 

 lender the real knowledge of the form and nature of plants easy j 

 to furnish the means of comparing together the analysis of theii 

 resemblance and their differences; and by these means assign to 

 each part a name, that may recall not only an ap|)ellation, but 

 the idea of their properties and qualities, and what situation 

 each part should hold in their general character in the vegetattc 

 iLorld, when compared with the animal creation. 



To show the formation of a plant by taking plants up progres- 

 sively from the ground, and then dissecting them in their increase, 

 nmst appear (I should suppose) of all means the most exact and 

 conclusive; since one specimen becomes inevitably the correc- 

 tion of the preceding ones. 



It is certainly the most exact method of understanding the for- 

 mation of a plant, though it was never before known that a 

 vegetable could be so taken : but common sense shows, that if 

 the last part can be examined progressively and outwardly, t!ie 

 first should be sought in the same manner, in its regular process 

 in the interior ; and if every part of a plant assimilates vvkh 

 the animal creation in so exact a manner interiorly, is it likely 

 it should differ in so Coscntial a point as to form its progeny or 

 seed between the skins P Is there a single instance in nature of 

 such a formation, either animal, reptile, or insect tribe? the lat- 

 ter of which so much resembles plants. In my last letter I 

 again brought forward that curious circumstance of which each 

 dissection confirms the truth, and which forms a most beautiful 

 and simple delineation of the construction of vegetable nature ; 

 I mean the fact " that the corculum of the seed is protruded in 

 the root." It has been said that I assert " that the seed is formed 

 there." I appeal to my various letters in this work and in Nichol- 

 son's Journal, for the refutation of this charge; proving there po- 

 sitively, that I never advanced such a proposition. No two things 

 can be more diflerent than the corculum of the seed and the 

 beed itself; the first being iuicrtcd within the second in the 



vsay 



