8 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



ments how they are produced, whence they are 

 brought, and by what exertions their appearance at 

 his board has been accomplished ? 



It -is not entirely in relation to their uses that a 

 knowledge of vegetable productions will be attempted 

 to be conveyed in the following pages. Circumstances 

 attend the growth of many even among the plants 

 most familiar to us, which need only to be observed to 

 insure our admiration, and these will be incidentally 

 pointed out. The seed of a globe-turnip is exceed- 

 ingly minute not larger perhaps than the twentieth 

 part of an inch in diameter ; and yet in the course 

 of a few short months this seed will be elaborated by 

 the soil and the atmosphere into a solid bulb of matter 

 containing, in some cases, twenty-seven millions of 

 times the bulk of the seed, and this in addition to a 

 considerable bunch of leaves. We cannot, in any 

 case, indeed, open a page in the great volume of 

 Nature that is not calculated to excite our highest 

 admiration ; that, if read right, must not incite us 

 onward to the study of her works ; or which can fail 

 to raise our grateful hearts towards the Supreme 

 Author of every good. 



