34 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



PLANT LIFE 



From an Address before the Union Agripultural Society. 



BY ELIPHALET STONE. 



The world is full of beauty, and the mind of man is sufficient 

 to analyze and bring it out. Let him think and work, and his 

 existence here will be no problem. He will become a creator 

 himself, and will create and surround himself with a new world 

 — a world of beauty and utility. 



Nature is a perfect laboratory. Her curious chemistry is full 

 of interest and instruction to the farmer. The sciences appli- 

 cable to agriculture are the keys to the hidden mysteries. 

 These sciences develop the true order of nature through all the 

 successive stages of mineral, vegetable and animal forms, reduc- 

 ing the vegetable creation back to its mineral elements, out of 

 which, through the agency of subtle and mysterious laws, the 

 wonders of the vegetable world have been elaborated ; and 

 further tracing the evolution of the animal kingdom from the 

 vegetable, to which it is so closely related as to seem to be a 

 regular outgrowth of it, until at last we reach man, — the crown, 

 the consummate flower of all, — with that infinitely higher prin- 

 ciple of God himself, and the whole a mighty illustration of 

 Divine power and wisdom. Nature never works but for an ob- 

 ject, and that object is the reproduction of its species ; and 

 nothing is perfect that does not possess within itself this repro- 

 ductive power, in whole or in part. 



We look upon the beautiful flowers and fruit as sent by a 

 Divine providence for our benefit and pleasure, and so we should 

 consider them ; for as man is the great master-piece of creation, 

 all other things must be regarded with reference to him. But 

 the flower and the fruit have another object in view, and that 

 object is the reproduction of themselves. Sir Humphrey Davy 



