MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



THE LAWS OF VEGETATION. 



From an Address before the Hampden East Agricultural Society, Oct. 6, 1858. 



BY OLIVER MARCY. 



All material existence is divided into organic and inorganic, 

 and the organic is again divided into vegetable and animal, so 

 that one of the earliest attempts of the human mind at scientific 

 classification gives us three kingdoms in nature, — the mineral, 

 the vegetable, and the animal. 



Tlie mineral is affected by blind forces only, such as gravity, 

 cohesion and affinity, and these affect every part alike. In the 

 mass there is no differentiation of parts to contribute to the 

 good of the united whole, but all parts are perfectly similar in 

 structure and office, and the least particle repeated makes the 

 whole mass. 



In the vegetable, there is superadded a vital force which con- 

 trols and modifies the blind forces of the mineral, and builds 

 for itself an existence distinct from every other existence, 

 whose parts differ from each other in structure and office, but 

 mutually contribute to the sustentation of the whole. The 

 spongioles, the root, the stem, the leaf are each distinct organs, 

 and each performing different parts of the work, co-operate to 

 build the organic vegetable from the inorganic mineral. 



The animal is endowed with vital force also, and has added 

 sensation and instinct ; but though air and water in their 

 unorganized state contribute to his welfare, yet he cannot live 

 upon these alone ; the mineral must be organized by the action 

 of the organs of the vegetable before it can serve as food for 

 the animal ; so that the logical order of existence is, first, the 

 mineral, then the vegetable, and last, and depending upon both 

 the others, is the animal. Here then appears the important 

 fact as a natural and logical necessity, as a part of the plan of 

 God, that all food for 7nan and beast depends primarifi/ and 

 essentially upon vegetable growth. And the corrollary is, that 



