STUDIES OF PLANT LIFE 
There seems to be a law of mutual dependence among 
the vegetable tribes, each one ministering to the wants of 
the others. Thus the shelter afforded by the larger trees 
to the smaller shrubs and herbs is repaid again to them by 
the nourishment that the decaying leaves and stems of these 
latter afford, and by the warmth that they yield to their 
roots in covering the ground from the winter cold, thus 
protecting them from injury. Further than this, it .is very 
probable that they appropriate to their own use qualities 
in the soil or in the air that might prove injurious to the 
healthy growth of the larger vegetables. That which is 
taken up by one race of plants is often rejected by others. 
Yet so beautiful is the arrangement of God’s economy in the 
vegetable world that something gathers up all fragments 
and nothing is lost—nay, not the minutest particle runs to 
waste. The farmer practically acknowledges the principle 
that one kind of vegetable feeds upon that which another 
rejects, when he adopts a certain routine in cropping his 
land, for he knows that if he planted grain in constant 
succession the soil would soon cease to yield its increase, 
because it would have ceased to afford the food necessary 
for perfecting the grain; but he sows wheat after roots, as 
potatoes, turnips and beets, or after pulse, as pease, beans 
or vetches, for these have taken only certain constituents 
of the soil, leaving those portions on which the cereals 
feed unappropriated. Thus silently, unconsciously, and 
mysteriously do God’s creatures administer to one another, 
working out the will of their Great Creator and obeying His 
laws while following the instincts of their several natures. 
We might follow this inviting subject to a greater length 
than our limits will admit, but it is time that we dismiss the 
lovely little Twinflower, hoping that it may sometimes 
win an admiring glance from readers who may be 
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