6o Instinct. 



ine to the extent of their means. There is no such 

 foolish extravagance, in the plant economy, as liv- 

 ing to the full extent of income each year, except 

 when the time has come for the plants to pass away 

 and then with true parental Instinct they bequeath 

 all they possess to their children ; which bequest is 

 always found to be just enough to start the young 

 plantlets well in life, till large enough to work and 

 gather materials for themselves. All the wealth of 

 beauty in early spring — the green blade of grass — 

 the fragrant Arbutus of the hill-side and the golden 

 Caltha by the brook, — these all are the products of 

 plant labor of the former year. 



These slow, secret processes are hid from the eye 

 of the most careful observer, and they would never 

 be known were it not for the sudden display of leaf 

 and flower in spring time, that reveals the secret of 

 this hoarded wealth. 



But there are other processes by which the plant 

 provides for its growth and seemingly for its enjoy- 

 ment and rest, as though it were a sentient being. 

 The Sun-flower turns its broad disk towards the sun 

 that its hundreds of flowers packed in one head may 

 bask in his light. A multitude of smaller flowers 

 that fail to attract the attention of common observ- 

 ers, are silent worshippers of the sun, or turn fondly 

 towards his life giving rays. And not the flowers 

 alone but leaf and stalk bend from the darkness to- 

 wards the light which can alone give the conditions 

 of life and growth. The power that turns them is 

 no mere enlargement of cells nor change of structure 

 as we are sometimes told, but the movement is as 

 inscrutible as the folding; of the leaf of the sensitive 



