180 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



readily by a certain form of environment, nutrition, than are 

 the developmental forces. Development is a higher form of 

 force, and is at a further remove from the inorganic than 

 growth. To repeat, the process of growth is far more under 

 the sway of nutrition than is that of development. The 

 ill-nourished plant may develop during growth, but the 

 growth is stunted. The rag-weed of our gardens can be cut 

 to the ground, and be exposed to great extremes of drought 

 on a gravel knoll, yet if there is vitality left, it will bloom 

 and ripen its seed, with an extremely scanty growth. This 

 plant, in a rich and congenial soil, maybe three feet tall; 

 under adverse circumstances the same process of development, 

 in kind, may take place in a plant under two inches tall. 



We have, in growth, an unknown though probably deter- 

 minate limit. Up to that limit growth can be accelerated, 

 and even forced, by nutrition. Within limits growth can be 

 retarded ; even a diminishing of bulk can take place through 

 the withholding of nutrition. Growth influences development ; 

 but no amount of growth, — or, in other words, the presence 

 of unlimited nutrition, — apparently, affects development but 

 in very circumscribed limits. The conception of growth is 

 simple, — accretion, as a crystal, may be said to grow from the 

 deposit of its own material from the surrounding menstruum. 

 The conception of development is complex, involving an 

 adjustment of many forces, operating through long periods, 

 and includes growth. 



Growth is distinct from development, yet allied ; is deter- 

 mined under the directions of the same laws which govern 

 development ; j^et the forces which determine growth and 

 development are different, in the same respect as are different 

 the forces which determine different exhibits of development. 

 All vital processes are the footing up of an unknown column 

 of figures that go back to the beginning. Every unit tells, 

 and some are plus and others minus. The phenomena we 

 observe is their addition, and the integer is fixed, although 

 perhaps not determinate to us. These integers are different 

 in every case. Higher in development than in growth, and 

 the tendency to increase according to the number of units 

 furnished through an increased complexity of environment. 



Growth is in sequence before development, as it is depend- 



