LIFE OK THE FAKM. 



some way or another obtained. Success in a practical 

 pursuit like agriculture, depends largely on the extent of 

 our knowledge, and still more upon our power of apply- 

 ing it under various circumstances. In the following 

 notes an attempt will be made to supply indications of 

 some among the phenomena of the life of plants of which 

 it seems most desirable that the cultivator should take 

 heed. Some slight knowledge of the general conforma- 

 tion of plants on the part of the reader is assumed, but 

 explanations of the more important points will be given. 

 A living plant feeds, breathes, grows, developes, mul- 

 tiplies, decays, and ultimately dies. In so doing it re- 

 ceives, it spends, it accumulates, it changes. Some of 

 these processes are always in operation, very generally 

 more than one is going on at the same time, and the 

 action of one is modified by and controlled by that of 

 another. Some circumstances and conditions favor these 

 operations, others hinder them. The practical cultiva- 

 tor has his concern in all these matters, so that it is of 

 no slight moment to him to realize what is the work 

 which a plant does, and how it does it. 



How Plants Feed. The nutritive process has to be 

 entered on the creditor side as a receipt. The plant will 

 indeed feed upon itself for a time, or rather it will feed 

 upon what its predecessor left it as an inheritance for this 

 very purpose, or upon the stores accumulated in the plant 

 itself during the preceding season ; thus, when a seed, or 

 rather the young plant within the seed, begins to grow, it 

 is at first unable to forage for itself, but it depends for 

 its sustenance on the materials laid up for its use during 

 the preceding season by the parent plant. So the bud of 

 a tree awakening into life, and beginning its career as a 

 shoot which is to bear leaves and flowers, derives its first 

 meals from the reserves accumulated the autumn previ- 

 ously in the parent branch. Very generally a little water, 



