168 LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF NATURE. 



series of incessant and as yet secret chemical operations, 

 to which we have before alluded. And the marvel is still 

 increased, when we consider how strangely alike thousands 

 of seeds are one to another, how slight the difference even 

 between the most unlike. And yet, two such tiny seeds, 

 planted in the same soil and living apparently on the 

 same food, produce the one an humble herb, the other 

 a mighty tree. Well may we ask, what wondrous forma- 

 tive power resides there in these little cells, tending ex- 

 actly in one direction, as though an ideal figure, gradually 

 to be realized, floated already before their infant eyes ? 



The first business, then, of the young plant seems to 

 be, to settle firmly down in the home which is to see 

 it grow, prosper and die. It sends its roots down into 

 the ground, in a hundred various forms. Sometimes they 

 are divided into a number of slender threads, to pene- 

 trate into loose, sandy soil, as in the grasses, that bind 

 the arid sands of the sea-coast together with their long, 

 articulated roots, and thus protect the dykes of Holland 

 against the fury of the ocean. Others are in the form 

 of a single, straight and powerful taproot, to pierce firm, 

 solid ground or even in long flat scales, which adhere 

 and fasten themselves to bare rocks. Tender, delicate 

 fibres though they be, these roots possess an incredible 

 power. Even in the slim, slender grass they are so firmly 

 interlaced with the soil, that they cannot be torn out 

 without a large mass of earth, and therefore compel us 

 to cut or saw off the straw of our grain. With large 

 trees they serve as gigantic anchors, chaining the mighty 

 monarch to the earth by their powerful and wide-spreading 



