18 PHENOMENA OF PLANT-LIFE. 



and these birds come and make their meals on the 

 supply thus provided. 



Every living creature has its cornfields ; true, it is 

 only man who is called upon to sow and reap, to grind 

 and to bake into bread, and this, in order that by 

 virtuous and regular labor he may have his intellect 

 and affections stimulated ; but cornfields, in their kind, 

 are spread for everything that eats, composed, it 

 may be, of the simplest and weakest plants in nature ; 

 still, in their importance to tens of thousands of 

 speechless creatures, no less momentous than the 

 broad acres of wheat and barley, oats, rice, rye, 

 millet, and maize, that supply the human population 

 of the earth with their daily sustenance. There is 

 probably no plant in nature that does not directly 

 support the life of some little animal : it was for this 

 purpose that plants were in great measure called into 

 being, and when we are tempted to despise the insig- 

 nificant ones, and to call them " weeds/ 7 we should 

 remember that nothing has been made in vain, and 

 that everything has been designed for some generous 

 purpose. But why should they be called " weeds " ? 

 Weeds are flowers out of the place for which Provi- 

 dence designed them. If a lily spring up by some 

 casualty in a potato-bed, it is in that place a weed, 

 quite as much so as a dandelion is among the tulips ; 

 but neither of them is a weed in its native woods or 

 fields, since these are the habitations assigned to 





