10 



wonderful than a seed. Among the grasses which waved in the 

 sunny valleys where the children of Adam roamed, some produced 

 little seeds, which were parched, ground and eaten. Thereupon, 

 these grasses were promoted to be the commissaries and providers 

 for the human race. Men have lived on these seeds for six thou- 

 sand years, and all the races of men are pledged to see that what- 

 ever else may be lost by drought or insect, these grasses shall 

 always be preserved ; and as long as the world lasts, they will 

 last. We call these seeds, wheat, barley, rye, oats, rice, maize, 

 chocolate, coffee, peas and beans. Go to Illinois, and you will 

 see great prairies, a hundred miles long, rolling into great waves 

 of wheat, hke the ocean ; then, in harvest, come the reap- 

 ing machines, and sail like ships across these fields, and then long 

 trains of cars carry the wheat to Chicago, where it is poured into 

 immense warehouses, where the steam elevators pump it up to 

 the top, from which it rushes down through a trough into vessels, 

 which carry it to all parts of the world. Twenty-five millions of 

 bushels of grain go from this one market of Chicago every year, — 

 25,000,000 of bushels of seeds. 



Then consider Nature's contrivances for scattering her seeds, 

 so that they shall go to a distance. Some have wings, and fly 

 through the air ; some sail on the water ; some have hooks and 

 crawl along the ground ; some have burrs, and stick to the sheep 

 and cattle who go by ; some have stalks which become elastic 

 when the seed is ripe, and spring back when pushed aside, and so 

 shoot out the seeds as from a bow. And, finally, some are sur- 

 rounded with delicious fruit, so that they may be carried to a dis- 

 tance for the sake of that. When you eat a peach or pear, you 

 may consider it the price which Nature pays her expresses for 

 bringing the seeds or stone where she wants them to go. 



Then the farmer may observe how the seed is packed up, to be 

 kept through the winter ; so nicely packed, that no cold, no wet, 

 no air, no Ught can reach it ; packed so well, that seeds of wheat 

 from an Egyptian mummy 3000 years old, have germinated when 

 planted ; and seeds of a raspberry taken from the stomach of a 

 man buried in the time of the Emperor Adrian, have also grown 

 up and borne fruit. So the seeds are packed, and so the buds on 

 the branches, till the Spring comes and touches them with its 



