282 VEGETABLE LIFE. 



cessive years of that century, there is nothing in the 

 museums half so curious. But we can trace them 

 in the cross section of the bole, and so virtually ar- 

 rive at all the rest. When the infant oak sprouts 

 out of the acorn, it is nothing but pith and pellicle, 

 the former a small portion of jelly, and the latter 

 very soft and tender. Even then the oak is an or- 

 ganized being, from the moment that we can discern 

 it ; and, previous to that, there is nothing but con- 

 jecture. The vital principle of the plant is not a 

 quality or property of the pith, or of the pellicle, for 

 both of these are mere matter, and neither of them 

 could of itself originate an oak any more than the 

 soil in which the acorn is set. The life consists in 

 the union of the two, the action of the one upon the 

 other; and that action takes place at the surface 

 where they meet. During the first year that action 

 converts the food of the plant (derived at the first 

 from the cotyledons, or lobes of the acorn, and then 

 from the soil and the air) into a new substance, the 

 cambium, or " changeable matter." That begins to 

 be formed as soon as ever the little plant puts out a 

 leaf, but the nature of the substance which is formed 

 depends not a little upon external circumstances ; 

 and the quality of the timber which the tree is to 

 produce is, in all probability, determined by the cir 

 cumstances under which the young plant performs 

 its very first action. 



We know from observation, that no plant will live 

 without air, or be healthy if the air is not pure and 

 good ; and we know, from the same source, that if 

 the plant is shut up from the light, it is colourless, 

 and contains little or no charcoal. If, therefore, the 

 young plant be in air that is tainted, or too deep in 

 the ground, its action must be vitiated, and it must, 

 as one may say, " start with bad timber." Now, if 

 a taint is given at the commencement, that is a con- 

 stitutional taint, and must remain with and vitiate 



