Fruits and Seeds. 



223 



of their surface. I shall have failed woefully in 

 my object if I leave you with the impression that 

 we know all about seeds. On the contrary, there 

 is not a fruit or a seed, even of one of our com- 

 monest plants, which would not amply justify and 

 richly reward the most careful study. 



7. In this, as in other branches of science, we have 

 but made a beginning. We have learnt just enough 

 to perceive how little we know. Our great masters 

 in natural history have immortalised themselves by 

 their discoveries, but they have not exhausted the 

 field ; and if seeds and fruits cannot vie with 

 flowers in the brilliance and colour with which they 

 decorate our gardens and our fields, still they surely 

 rival them in the almost infinite variety of the 

 problems which they present to us, the ingenuity, 

 the interest, and the charm of the beautiful con- 

 trivances which they offer for our study and our 

 admiration. 



HARRISON and SONS, Printers in Ordinary to Her Majesty, St. Martin's Lane. 



