The Plant's Response 179 



exists whatever. Look back with me into those dim fields 

 and see the first agriculturist sowing his first crop of 

 primeval wheat. What a step was that in the history 

 of humanity! How timidly he must have essayed his 

 work, copying the winds. Wasteful man, casting away 

 his meager store. How must his faith have been sorely 

 tried ere ever the seed could grow ! No voice had then 

 proclaimed to his encouragement, ' ' Cast thy bread upon 

 the waters, for thou shalt find it after many days." 

 Then, with what interest he saw the harvest rise, " first 

 the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear." 

 Then the harvest; look, my friends! The light is dim, 

 but you can see him, a dull, brown, little figure moving 

 over the brown fields in an atmosphere that seems fra- 

 gile with antiquity, bringing in the earliest ripened 

 spikes, the first fruit of his own sowing. Was ever 

 triumph like unto that ! That one harvest made possible 

 the civilization of the race. 1 ' Behold a sower went forth 

 to sow!" There he is again; far yonder on the distant 

 hills, in the light of humanity's morning, he and those 

 who walk there with him. How little do they forecast 

 and know! What state of mind was that, when to a 

 human soul lay yet undiscovered the one universal truth, 

 "Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap!" 



In this original research work of the race all sorts of 

 primitive men took part. One of the wonderful things 

 about the Japanese to me, is the remarkable list of cul- 

 tivated plants which these antipodes of ours have coaxed 

 up out of the world of vegetation around them. They 

 have cherries but they are not ours, they have plums 

 chiefly for bloom, but some of those that they eat, are not 



