C|e faabian Partimltarist 



VOL. III.] JANUARY, 1880. [No. 2. 



APRICOT AND NECTARINE CULTIVATION. 



BY REV. R. BURNET, HAMILTON. 



The Divine beneficence and munificence are marvelously patent to 

 the least considerate, and to the dullest apprehension, if only casually 

 dwelt upon. This assertion is a truism in regard to all His works, 

 who created all things, and for whose pleasure all things are and were 

 created. It is especially true in the distribution of plants. Every 

 zone on the face of our earth has its distinctive sorts of plants, and 

 were it not for certain wise and beneficent arrangements of Divine 

 Providence, those plants peculiar to certain belts would be confined 

 specially to their peculiar latitude. By means, however, the most 

 striking and benevolent, and yet the most simple and efficacious, the 

 growth and development of these plants are not confined to restricted 

 and peculiar limits. The gentle gradation of one order of plants run- 

 ning into and growing alongside of other varieties of plants flourishing 

 near them, and adapted to that particular habitat, can everywliere be 

 observed. But that is not the thought we wish to present, though no 

 unimportant thought in itself. What we wish to notice is the remark- 

 able natural provisions that are made in creation for the growth, 

 fructification and perfect development of plants, as it were, out of 

 their natural habitat. This is sometimes accomplished by one means 

 and sometimes by another. So beautiful is the provision of the All- 

 wise, that we cannot but regard it as running strongly counter to the 

 foolish and pernicious doctrine at present so popular and wide-spread, 

 the doctrine of natural selection. Instead of all that is implied by 

 natural selection, whatever that means in the philosophic language of 

 the day, we see in it rather Divine protection — Divine care for the 

 weakest and least protected — in establishing means and circumstances 

 calculated to afford shelter and the means of existence for tlie plant, 

 and benefit for man. These means of existence spring from natural 



