OF OAKS. 313 



have the light excluded during what may be 

 called the " fermentative" part of the process of 

 germination, which is the earliest stage of it; 

 yet in the case of the acorn, that is over before 

 the shell is ruptured. The acorn, from which 

 the figure was drawn, was taken from under the 

 earth, not above an inch or an inch and a half 

 indeed, but still under a firm covering, so as to 

 exclude the light from it altogether, and the air 

 nearly so, at least the free action of the air; and, 

 unless by some effort, which it is not easy to see 

 any agent capable of producing, the first leaves 

 must have been formed, and the character of the 

 oak determined, before the light could possibly 

 have had the smallest effect upon it. 



Now it is very much to be suspected that it is 

 at this early stage that the mischief is done ; and 

 T am the more inclined to that opinion from the 

 fact that the practical men seem to know very 

 little about the process of germination, even in 

 those seeds which they are sowing by thousands, 

 nay, millions, every year, there is not much, 

 indeed, in the professed writers on Vegetable 

 Physiology. The agency of light was not under- 

 stood in the days of Grew and Malphigi; and 

 though that agency be better understood now, 

 there has not been very much added to the other 

 branch of the science. Besides, the buried acorn 

 does appear to make some sort of effort to come 

 to the surface, and when it is there the cotyle- 

 dons acquire a greenish tinge, which they do not 

 acquire when buried ; and that clearly shows that 

 in their natural state, they give to the food with 

 which they supply the young plant some of that 

 preparation which vegetable matter receives from 

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