INTRODUCTORY. 15 
justed the lives of Trees to the lives of man that 
no generation of men is born without finding the 
perfection of the Almighty’s handiwork in the 
vegetable world. We know thatin the beginning, 
before the creation of man, God said, ‘Let the 
Earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, 
and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind, 
whose seed is in itself, upon the Earth. And 
we know also that in the omniscient order of 
things ‘the Earth brought forth grass and herb, 
yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding 
fruit whose seed was in itself, after his kind;’ 
and that ‘ God saw that it was good.’ 
Though the period of time required for the 
full development and perfection of a Tree is so 
long, there is no stage of its growth during which 
it is not beautiful and useful to man; and though 
man, in the ordinary course of nature, cannot 
watch the rise and fall of an individual amongst 
the noblest order of Trees—cannot, for instance, 
watch the rise and fall, if the fall be not pre- 
mature, of an Oak—he will find that there is no 
stage of the Tree growth that he may not be able 
to study and admire. 
