ATTRACTIONS OP PLANT LIFE. 305 



except those which are distinctly woody, have perennial 

 parts ; in tubers, rhizomes, and bulbs, the older portions die 

 after new portions have been formed. The power to 

 produce offshoots or stolons is the real difference between 

 annual and perennial herbaceous plants. Even in the case 

 of those annuals which throw up only a single flower stalk, 

 if the flower buds are removed before they expand, and the 

 flower-stem cut up into sections, plants may be raised which 

 will live for many years if annually treated in the same 

 way. 



Pleasures of Thought and Work. And yet even the few 

 changes of plant life, thus briefly outlined, may seem 

 difficult at flrst. But let us consider the great difference, 

 visible all through nature and the world we live in, even 

 between one man and another that one is poor and 

 another rich, that one is strong and another weak, 

 that one is sick and another well, that one knows a 

 great many things and another very few ; that one 

 thinks much and another very little, if any. In all our 

 plans for what we hope to do another day, in all our 

 reading, all our learning, in our amusements, let us try 

 and think about what we are doing. Get into the way 

 of asking the meaning of what we see or do. All have 

 not the same power of thought, but all can think, and 

 can cultivate that amount of thought which is natural to 

 each for study and work. It is true of every one of 

 us, that to do anything for good, or what is more 

 important, for the good of fellow men, we must use the 

 mind and not the hands only, in what we are doing. The 

 study of plant life then comes, with many other pleasures, 

 into the enjoyments of existence. 



XXIV. ENEMIES OF THK AGRICULTURIST. 



THE more serious sources of annoyance and loss to the 

 cultivator arise from fungi and insects. In the dairy, 

 and in wine making, we have to gain the acquaintance of 

 bacterial visitors and their effects upon both vegetable and 



