CAUSES OF BARRENNESS, &C. 171 



we shall not presume to decide ; but venture to assert 

 that if the modern notion be true, it detracts from 

 the ideas generally entertained of the simplicity and 

 beautiful arrangements of vegetable structure and 

 evolution, and which we naturally deem to be results 

 of fixed laws : whereas, it seems that such essential 

 forms are only the effects of adventitious associa- 

 tions ! 



If, however, proofs of these fortuitous conforma- 

 tions were afforded by plants in a state of uncultivated 

 nature, some credence might be bestowed ; but when 

 they are only drawn from pampered varieties, the 

 monstrous children of art 9 in the shape of roses, 

 Crasanne, or Colmar pears, highly cultivated plants, 

 we deem the examples unsatisfactory, and inferences 

 from them erroneous. 



Irregularities, malformations, abortions, and mon- 

 strosities, are frequent among highly cultivated plants. 

 The chief favourites in the flower and kitchen gardens 

 are examples ; but they are all casual, and confessedly 

 spurious productions : being exceptions to the fixed 

 laws of vegetable development, and in no case to be 

 taken as a rule in describing it. Irregularities in 

 development are also seen independent of any inter- 

 ference of art. The round and imbricated galls on the 

 oak, and the mossy tufts on the shoots of the sweet- 

 briar, are the niduses of insects. But these, like the 

 manipulations of man, only cause aberrations in dis- 

 position, and multiplication of parts, without being 

 considered as constitutional characteristics. We 



