^30 NATURAL THEOLOay. 



disproportion ably long, they bend down their extremities 

 upon the anthera3, that the necessary approximation may be 

 effected. 



But, to pursue this great work in its progress, the im- 

 piegnation, to which all this machinery relates, being com- 

 pleted, the other parts of the flower fade and drop ofl^ while 

 the gravid seed-vessel, on the contrary, proceeds to increase 

 its bulk, always to a great, and in some species — in the 

 gourd, for example, and melon — to a surprising comparative 

 size ; assuming in different plants an incalculable variety of 

 forms, but all evidently conducing to the security of the 

 seed. By virtue of this process, so necessary, but so diver- 

 sified, we have the seed at length in stone-fruits and nuts 

 encased in a strong shell, the shell itself inclosed in a pulp 

 or husk, by which the seed within is or has been fed ; or 

 more generally, as in grapes, oranges, and the numerous 

 kinds of berries, plunged overhead in a glutinous syrup con- 

 tained within a skin or bladder ; at other times, as in apples 

 and pears, embedded in the heart of a firm, fleshy sub- 

 stance, or, as in strawberries, pricked into the surface of a 

 soft pulp. 



These and many more varieties exist in what we call 

 fruits.^ In pulse and grain and grasses, in trees and shrubs 



* From the conformation of fruits alone, one might be led, even 

 Avithout experience, to suppose that part of tliis provision was destined 

 for the utilities of annuals. As limited to the plant, the provision 

 itself seems to go beyond its object. The flesh of an apple, the pulp 

 of an orange, the meat of a plum, the fatness of the olive, appear to 

 be more than sufficient for the nourishing of the seed or kernel. The 

 fcvent shows that this redundancy, if it be one, ministers to the sup- 

 port and gratification of animal natures ; and when we observe a pro- 

 vision to be more than sufficient for one purpose, yet wanted for an- 

 other- purpose, it is not mifair to conclude that both purposes wt^re 

 contemplated together. It favors this view of the subject to remark, 

 that fruits are not, which they might have been, ready all together, 

 but that they ripen in succession throughout a great part of the yeai : 

 «ome in summer, some in autumn; that some require the slow matu- 

 ration of the winter, and supply the spring; also, that the ^oliiesit 



