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or useful to us, are most carefully propagated by cuttings, 

 and are in fact but the assiduous multiplication or rather 

 prolongation of the same individual life, which is not the 

 case with plants of a more primitive type, that conse- 

 quently are freely propagated by their own prolific seed. 



This we understand to be one phase of the high mis- 

 sion of man while a denizen upon the earth, to exercise 

 the noble privilege of subduing all things unto the best 

 wishes and purposes of his race, having this promise ever 

 before us taught by science as well by our sublime reli- 

 gion, that by seeking we shall find, by knocking it shall* 

 be opened unto us ; a sure reward sooner or later always 

 repaying the patient investigator. 



It therefore becomes not irreverent to declare that in a 

 certain sense and in a delegated manner man is a creator, 

 calling into being forms that without his aid might never 

 exist. 



The grains and edible roots so indispensible to man and 

 the lower animals are so few as to be "almost counted upon 

 the fingers" but in their varieties are almost endless ; while 

 many of ftiem in a primitive wild state can no longer be 

 found upon the earth. Much the same is it with the fruits 

 proper, and while this has been so long' true, there still 

 remains unknown and unappropriated hundreds of plants 

 capable of yielding both food and ornamentation, that 

 still remain in the wilds of the earth just as they came 

 from the great Creator's hand, simple and undeveloped. 



When we allude to the plants of the garden and green- 

 house, how few of the large number do we find well un- 

 derstood in their possible modifications and whose mani- 

 fest changes scarcely ever weary us. If this developed 

 few in their numerous varieties were taken from their 

 places on the shelves and in the borders, our gardens 

 would be bare indeed. 



