peiiectly similar are to be observed in the 

 vegetable world. An apple-tree deprived 

 of its bark by an incision being made in 

 the form of a ring round a fruit-bearing 

 brancli, causing the descent of the re- 

 turning sap to be prevented, produces 

 prematurely ripe fruil, and the small 

 crumpling codlings are ripened from a 

 similar cause, and which may justly be 

 termed an early old age in this part 

 of the tree. Thus, as accident produces 

 disease, disease produces debility, which 

 furthers the operation of ripening ; and 

 in this state the fluid of the trees under- 

 goes a chemical change, producing a sac- 

 charine substance as its result. In which 

 state it attracts and becomes the food of 

 those numerous insects with which the 

 great Author of nature has, for the wisest 

 of purposes, stored every part of our 

 globe : and here we must look up with 

 wonder to that Almighty Being, in whose 

 works we never see a link deficient, but 

 a continual reproduction of matter, formed 

 on the decay of other natural bodies, and 

 which, like the circulation of the blood, 

 B 5 



