16 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



conditions may have been entirely different from those existing at 

 the present time. The buried geological organisms are now 

 looked upon as the ancestors from which have been derived the 

 rich diversity of fruit forms of the present age. These have been 

 developed in their successive generations b}' the necessary 

 accommodation to the ever-changing and progressive conditions of 

 life. The mysterious development of the primitive fruits is the 

 expansion of that which was invisible into visibility. Their life 

 may be regarded as purely a physical phenomenon, dependent on 

 mechanical and chemical causes inherent in the nature of matter. 

 In the beginning no vegetation clothed the earth's crust, but the 

 decomposing influence of the atmosphere has taken effect upon 

 inorganic matter to such a degree as to develop vegetation in 

 suflScient quantity for the present economy of the world. The 

 plant growth of the carboniferous era was luxuriant and abundant, 

 but mostly flowerless and fruitless. The club-mosses were then a 

 magnificent group, never surpassed in their development. The 

 universal diffusion of lichens which disintegrated the hard and 

 barren rocks prepared an organic soil in which higher orders of 

 vegetation could exist. Their powderj' crusts and little colored 

 cups were formed from the particles of sand into which they 

 crumbled the surface of the rocks, and by their own decaying 

 tissues they produced a thin layer of mould for the sustenance of 

 the simplest mosses. These added their contribution of withered 

 leaves to increase the film of soil. The decay of gigantic ferns, 

 palms, and reeds supplied the soil with humus, and made material 

 necessary for the development of the succeeding generations of 

 fruit plants. Lycopods and ferns doubtless led the way from the 

 fiowerless plants to the flowering pines and firs ; and so, from 

 the lower to the higher forms of organized structures, progression 

 from the general to the special attributes of organic bodies is 

 shown to be a law of organization. Plants of a higher order 

 gradually succeeded each other, each series contributing to, and 

 assisting to prepare a soil for the future growth of its own and 

 other species, from the loose and incoherent mass of decaying 

 tissues, sand, and disintegrated soil which previous occupants had 

 left behind. 



It has been demonstrated that for an indefinite period vegetable 

 life existed and perished ; that destruction of the individual as 

 that of species has taken place, and that while the death of a 



