364 THE OLIVE LEAF. 



CHAP. 



in the economy of plants, but just the ashes deposited 

 by the flame of life as it burns away the structure, con- 

 serving the embers of that life for a fresh conflagration 

 of beauty when the new impulse of growth is felt ? 

 Without these ashes there could be no resuscitation of 

 vegetable life, when once it had burnt itself away. All 

 the beauty of the green fields and woods thus springing 

 from the root, or the seed, or the bud, is produced from 

 the ashes of previous vegetation. On the lawn, the 

 golden suns of the dandelion expire in the grey ashes of 

 their downy seeds, which float away on the breeze to 

 kindle into golden suns on other lawns. The very soil 

 out of which vegetable life starts is made up of the 

 ashes of former plants ; and the tree that feeds upon 

 the decay of its own fallen leaves displays the richest 

 luxuriance of foliage. What is all the fair summer 

 growth of this year but the beauty that has sprung out 

 of the ashes of last summer's growth ? The combustion 

 that has produced those ashes in the intervening autumn 

 and winter has taken place so quietly and gradually 

 that we have not been conscious of it. And yet, in im- 

 portance and magnitude, the grandest conflagration 

 compared with it sinks into insignificance. And the 

 power that has developed new beauty out of the ashes 

 has also been working slowly and silently in the tiny 

 laboratory of every green blade and leaf that unfolds 

 itself to the mellow sunshine. 



Some plants are found only where something has 

 been burnt. Farmers say that wood ashes will cause 

 the dormant white clover to spring up; and fields 



