138 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



J'he same peculiar power possessed by the bud belongs to certain 

 fruits. The young acorns on some of our oaks, which require 

 two years to mature their fruit, and the apparently tender seeds 

 of the witch-hazel, defy the coldest winters. In fact, whatever 

 part of the plant is required to live over from one season to the 

 next, has this peculiar power of withstanding cold, although it 

 may appear the tenderest portion of the whole structure. 



In most of the cases thus far mentioned the relationship of 

 the plant arises from what is ordinarily termed the nature of 

 the organs, but the action of these organs is also important. 

 Many of the results produced by the functions of organs are so 

 specific and so well understood that they present strong analo- 

 gies to certain acts of animals, under the guidance of instinct or 

 intelligence. The loss of the leaf already alluded to might, 

 perhaps, be reckoned among the instinct-like provisions which 

 the tree makes for its preservation, but in this case it more 

 resembles certain organic changes in animals in which they are 

 mostly passive, as in the shedding of the winter coat in spring. 

 The animal has no power to produce this change, though he 

 may be indirectly an actor. The snake could never slip out of 

 his skin, nor the lobster from its shell, nor the ox remove his 

 coat, if there had not been a provision in the organization and 

 function of each for a periodical loosening of the scales and 

 shell and hair. 



But as in the animal certain provisions are made by instinct 

 for its own welfare and that of its young, so in plants we find 

 analogous provisions made, as though they were sentient beings. 



Some provisions made for the maturing protection and early 

 growth of buds and seeds are of this nature. The structure of 

 all leaf buds is essentially the same, and in some of our trees 

 they can be examined without difiiculty. The delicate leaves 

 all ready formed, are closely packed, sometimes, as in the horse- 

 chestnut, in softest down. These again are covered with closely 

 fitting scales, and these again by a coating of insoluble varnish. 

 Mechanically, the whole contrivance is perfect, and the work 

 most skilfully done. In adapting means to ends, the structure 

 of the bud is not surpassed by any work of man. But that bud 

 is first to put out leaves, and these are the organs for elaborating 

 sap. 



