

OF OAKS. 293 



taken from under the earth, not above an inch or an 

 inch and a half indeed, but still under a firm cover- 

 ing, so as to exclude the light from it altogether, and 

 the air nearly so, at least the free action of the air ; 

 and, unless by some effort, which it is not easy to 

 see any agent capable of producing, the first leaves 

 must have been formed, and the character of the 

 oak determined, before the light could possibly have 

 had the smallest effect upon it. 



Now it is very much to be suspected that it is at 

 this early stage that the mischief is done ; and I am 

 the more inclined to that opinion from the fact that 

 the practical men seem to know very little about 

 the process of germination, even in those seeds 

 which they are sowing by thousands, nay, millions, 

 every year, there is not much, indeed, in the pro- 

 fessed writers on vegetable physiology. The 

 agency of light was not understood in the days of 

 Grew and Malpighi; and though that agency be 

 better understood now, there has not been very 

 much added to the other branch of the science. 

 Besides, the buried acorn does appear to make 

 some sort of effort to come to the surface, and when 

 it is there the cotyledons acquire a greenish tinge, 

 which they do not acquire when buried ; and that 

 clearly shows that in their natural state, they give 

 to the food with which they supply the young plant 

 some of that preparation which vegetable matter 

 receives from the action of light. The condition of 

 all blanched and etiolated plants, compared with that 

 of the very same species freely exposed to the air, 

 clearly shows that carbon and astringency, the very 

 things in which the perishable oak timber is de- 

 ficient, are among the principal results of the ope- 

 ration of light. These additions appear to hinder 

 rather than forward mere growth at the time, for an 

 etiolated potato will rise thirty feet in the dark, 

 whereas it would not rise as many inches if exposed 

 B b2 



