63 



CHAPTER V. 



STRUCTURE OF PLANTS AND CHANGES WHICH ACCOMPANY 

 THEIR GROWTH. 



80. Having completed our survey of the raw materials with 

 which nature has stored the soil and the ah*, to be employed 

 by the crops of the farmer and the tribes of plants innume- 

 rable which cover the surface of the earth for the production 

 of the compounds which reader them so valuable to man for 

 food and medicine, and which afford him materials for his 

 dress and dwellings, our attention is naturally directed to the 

 arrangements, the machinery by which these compounds are 

 fonned. With every seed that the farmer, depending upon 

 the scriptural promise,* commits to the soil, a new machine, 

 far more curious than the locomotive steam-engine, or the 

 most refined mechanical contrivance of the factory, is set in 

 motion. To produce this seed all the energies of the plant 

 have been exerted, it is the last and finished work of vege- 

 table life, and in its structure admirably adapted for its 

 important oflice. We will therefore commence with its con- 

 sideration. 



81. Leaving it to the botanist to describe the different forms 

 in which seeds are presented to us, and the numerous curious 

 contrivances by which nature protects them from injury, and 

 secures their dispersion over the earth, in some cases pro- 

 viding them with silky wings to float through the air, and in 

 others enveloping them in dense flinty coverings or canoe-like 

 cases, which enable them to glide uninjured over the waters 

 of seas and rivers, we will briefly inquu*e into the changes 

 which are observed to accompany the development of the 

 young plant. 



82. You know that when in a favom-able season you place 

 the seeds of any of your plants in the soil of the field, in the 

 course of a few days they undergo the same changes that we 

 observe when barley is being converted into the " malt" of 

 the brewer. The seed softens and swells, and there are 

 pushed out two portions of its inner substance, which gra- 

 dually increase in size and extend themselves in opposite 



* " While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and 

 heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease." 



