AT THE PERIOD OP PUBERTY. 167 



contained within the ovaries, stimulated into life by the 

 heat, put forth roots in the mass of nourishing, decaying 

 matter which surrounds them, and which was provided 

 by Nature for this very purpose, and develope into new 

 plants ; which, should circumstances favor their growth, 

 pass again through the same life-changes as the parent 

 tree on which they originated. 



Such are the progressive phenomena in the growth not 

 only of the Apple tree, but of all the trees which are 

 natives of northern climates, modified, of course, by pecu- 

 liarities of structure and constitution ; but all grow in a 

 similar manner, — their forms gradually unfolding from the 

 seed, according to the same laws. 



The tree exhibits a picture of the whole of Nature, and 

 of the way in which Nature works. In its building up, it 

 shows that the grand is always preceded by the apparently 

 insignificant, and complexity of structure by extreme 

 organic simplicity. Cell and fibre, leaf-scale and leaf, 

 shoot, branchlet, and branch, all preceded each other, and 

 their united labors produced the blossom and fruit, the 

 highest, the culminating point of organic perfection and 

 metamorphosis. So that no part of the tree is insignifi- 

 cant, and all its organs are mutually dependent on each 

 other ; for is there not a centralization of their forces, a 

 unity of their organic action, in the labors necessary to 

 form the blossom and the fruit ? 



In the early part of this chapter, I spoke somewhat 

 enthusiastically of a little, apparently insignificant. Spring 

 flower, popularly called Whitlow Grass {Brabaverna), whose 

 blossoms cover the ground, in the utmost profusion, in the 

 months of March and April. Now, vulgarly speaking, 

 this plant is nothing but a " common weed." Will you 

 believe, reader, that I have watched this plant, through all 

 the phases of its brief life-history, for several years, with 

 an interest ever on the increase ! Let me tell you a few of 

 the thoughts which it has suggested. I have marked the 

 care with which Nature preserves its germs, and the con- 

 stancy with which it appears on the earth's surface at the 



