54 THE INNER ORGANIZATION OF TREES. 



ance was insignificant, and the task allotted to them in the 

 labor of construction was small ; but it was nevertheless, 

 physiologically speaking, an important one : for phytons, 

 even when for want of a proper supply of sap and sun- 

 light they can produce nothing but starveling shoots, or 

 take the form of stipules or bud-scales, are nevertheless 

 necessary in the places where they are situated, in order 

 to develope other parts which are of more service to the 

 tree. They form a link in the chain of mutual labor. 

 And not only individually do they receive support from 

 the tree, but each labors according to the extent of its 

 capacity in yielding the tree an equivalent, in insuring it 

 the means of protecting and sustaining its life. 



Even the little cell, through the increase of which the 

 whole mass of the tree itself is formed, plainly teaches us 

 this great moral lesson. According to physiologists, man 

 himself was, at the commencement of life, nothing but a 

 single cell. The inner organization of trees, and the pe- 

 culiarities of their cell-life, has therefore some claim on 

 his consideration. 



Variety of form and function is characteristic of all the 

 parts of the tree, and not less varied are the gifts of the in- 

 dividuals constituting the population of a city or country. 

 It is this variety of gift, this division and association of 

 labor for a common object, which has created society. 

 And there can be no growth or progress either ^of indi- 

 viduals or communities without labor. 



Let me define what I understand by the term labor. 

 To many persons this word conveys ideas of nothing but 

 suffering, constraint, and fatigue. This is not what I 

 mean. I call labor any useful employment of our physical 

 and intellectual powers ; some occupation of mind or body, 

 no matter what, by means of which we insure our own 

 progress and the advance of society. This lesson is 

 taught, not only by all the individual parts of the noble 

 forest tree, but by every flower and blade of grass: in fact 

 by all the individuals of the vegetable world. All are at 

 work, and what is more to the purpose, usefully employed. 



