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of the year. Spring is required for the ascent of 

 the sap in the fruit trees ; summer and autumn 

 ripen their produce ; and the cold of winter is 

 necessary for hardening the shoots, which have 

 been produced hy the heat of the sun. " If the 

 wheat-ear," says an eloquent writer, " were to 

 remain exposed to the sun of a six month's sum- 

 mer, the grain would be reduced to chaff. If it 

 were green during a spring of similar length, it 

 would never come to maturity. Either our ve- 

 getables are suited to our year, or our year to 

 them. In either case we see a law of mutual 

 adaptation, which demonstrates the necessity of 

 previous design." The invariable regularity with 

 which the earth performs its annual revolution is 

 demonstrative of Divine love ; for, were not this 

 the case, seed-time and harvest would fall into 

 confusion, and all our calculations of time, and 

 our dependence for direction from celestial phe- 

 nomena would be vain and abortive. So would 

 it be with the alternation of day and night, were 

 the duration of these not immutably fixed also ; 

 the vegetable kingdom even would be convulsed ; 

 the marigold, which as Shakspeare says, 



" Goes to bed with the sun, 

 And with him rises weeping," 



the hawkweed, the day-lily, and the dandelion 

 and others, from which Linnaeus attempted to 

 construct a natural clock, from their opening 

 and closing at certain hours, would have all their 



