THE FOOD OF PLANTS. 



nnHE most delightful and instructive of the stud- 

 ies connected with the farm relate to plant 

 life, and the food of plants. It may seem to many 

 that a consideration of the food of plants implies the 

 necessity of a belief in the possession by plants of 

 certain organs or powers of digestion and assimila- 

 tion, and this belief should be entertained, for it is 

 founded upon fact. Plants do indeed in a most 

 proper sense eat and drink, and they are as capri- 

 cious in regard to the kind and quality of the food 

 which they demand as are animals or human be- 

 ings. It is as interesting to study the nature of the 

 appetite and wants of a stalk of corn, or wheat, or 

 a blade of timothy, as that of a child which the 

 mother so carefully and anxiously watches and 

 tends during the weeks and months of early in- 

 fancy. 



What a mystery there is in the life of a plant ! 

 How does a tree, or a shrub, or a blade of grass, 

 grow ? This interrogatory has often been put to 

 men of science, and the patient researches which 

 have been made, by the aid of that beautiful and 

 wonderful instrument, the modern microscope, en- 



