178 



SEEDS, BUDS, BULBS. 



Sect. IX. 3. 7. 



ceffive generations, a piece of very important knowledge to the 



Pl 



of orchards 



which they owe to the obfervation of Mr 



Knight, as mentioned in Sed. VII. i. 3 



Hence in many plants produced from feeds, perhap 



more leaf-buds precede the flower-bud 



and I fuppofe generally, if 



ways, a magazine of aliment is formed at the bafes of th 



or in the roots, for the nutriment of the fucceeding leaf-bud or 

 flower-bud, of which it is the parent. 



Thus in the carrot and turnep the firft leaves conftitute the lungs 

 of the new vegetable being, which generates the fucceeding flower- 

 flem, and fecretes or depofits for it a magazine of aliment, which 

 forms the tuberous root : and then this firft plant from the feed and 



leaves or lungs perifh ; and the root gradually flirivels up, as it is 



abforbed by th 



flower-ftem 



In many plants thefe firft 



leaves differ in form from thofe of the fucceeding ftem, as in palmated 

 rhubarb, and in campanula rotundifolia, which is fo called from the 

 round form of the leaves of this firft leaf-bud, or root-plant, which 

 precedes the flower-ftem. 



7 



One great 



advantage of Mr. Tull's horfe-hoeing huft)andry, in 

 which the earth near the rows of wheat is alternately turned from 

 and to them during the vernal months, has been fuppofed to arife 

 from fome fibres of the roots being thus cut off, and new ftems (hoot- 

 ing up at the ends of thofe which remain ; but the real caufe of the 

 produdlion of the new ftems is from the accumulation of earth above 

 the firft joint of the young wheat-plant ; from which the new buds 

 fpring out, generated and nourifhed by the caudex of the leaf, which 

 furrounds that joint, and which afterwards withers ; this important 

 circumftance is ftiewn by the annexed delineation of a tranfplanted 

 wheat-plant. 



The plant of wheat was taken from a corn-field in the fpring, 

 and then confifted firft of the root immediately proceeding from the 



feed 



