CHAPTER I. 



THE BUILDING UP OF THE TREE-FORM OUT OF ITS UNIT; OR, THE 

 LIFE OF THE TREE TRACED THROUGHOUT ITS VEGETATIVE PERIOD 

 FROM INFANCY TO PUBERTY. 



A TREE is indisputably the most highly-developed form 

 which vegetable life assumes. In the appearance of one 

 that has stood for centuries, there is something noble and 

 majestic. When we look at its now massive stem and far- 

 extended branches, and then call to mind its smallness and 

 feebleness at the commencement of its life ; when we re- 

 member that this great tree was once so small as to be in- 

 closed within a little seed, and that the tons of solid timber 

 which it contains have been all drawn by that seed from 

 the earth and atmosphere, we cannot but feel that we have 

 before us a most impressive proof of the operations of the 

 attractive forces. What an immense amount of vitally 

 organized material has been here gathered together ! It 

 is God's own architecture ! This mass of vegetable matter 

 is only earth and air which has undergone transmutation ! 

 The material alike of wandering zephyrs and rushing 

 storms, of gently descending night-dews and angry thun- 

 der-showers, has been here, on this spot, metamorphosed ! 



Yet we pass these great and wonderful works of Provi- 

 dence every day of our lives without a thought. The 

 gradual and silent building-up of a tree excites no curiosity, 

 conveys no moral lesson. What may be learned from a 

 tree ? Clear and comprehensive views of the organization 

 and laws which govern the civilized world ! Rules of con- 

 duct which lie at the foundation of all success in business, 

 all progress in the pathway to pre-eminence. It is the aim 



