106 SPRING. 



the syngenesis of Linnseus. Also, as all the buds and 

 leaves upon a living tree are in a state fit for growing, 

 the pruning by the insect, when not carried to excess, 

 may be healthful to it. Before, however, we can make 

 any remarks upon the usefulness of natural objects or 

 events, farther than as they are useful to ourselves, we 

 must know the whole ; and how far we may yet be 

 from that, is not a measurable quantity. 



Still the little that we do know about it is very de- 

 lightful, and never more so than when the breath of 

 spring first wiles us into the field, wondering at every 

 thing around us. There is a richer tone of colour in 

 the sky, and certainly in the clouds ; the air, as it fans 

 the newly loosened earth, is all perfume, without any 

 of the heaviness of that which comes from particular 

 substances. The turned sod shows us that we have 

 not in all our chemical apparatus an alembic like the 

 earth. The perfumes that the finest of our art can 

 distil, have always something sickly about them, and 

 though they please the sense for a little, they pall upon 

 it in the end. It is thus with the rich perfumes of the 

 summer, in the production of which, as well as in some 

 of the glowing tints of colour that then make nature 

 so gay, there may be more of the action of prnssine 

 than has been detected ; and that may be at least one 

 of the reasons why there is a trace of sickliness in 

 them. That principle has been found abundantly in 

 some seeds, such as the kernels of peaches and bitter 

 almonds, and there is a trace of it in many others. 

 From the energy with which it acts upon the carbonates, 

 it is obviously well fitted for being an efficient agent in 

 the vegetable economy ; as we know that the separa- 



