8 PLANT LIFE ON THE FARM. 
some way or another obtained. Success in a practical 
pursuit like agriculture, depends largely on the extent of 
our knowledge, and still more upon our power of apply- 
ing it under various circumstances. In the following 
notes an attempt-will be made to supply indications of 
some among the phenomena of the life of plants of which 
it seems most desirable that the cultivator should take 
heed. Some slight knowledge of the general conforma- 
tion of plants on the part of the reader is assumed, but 
explanations of the more important points will be given. 
A living plant feeds, breathes, grows, developes, mul- 
tiplies, decays, and ultimately dies. In so doing it re- 
ceives, it spends, it accumulates, it changes. Some of 
these processes are always in operation, very generally 
more than one is going on at the same time, and the 
action of one is modified by and controlled by that of 
‘another. Some circumstances and conditions favor these 
operations, others hinder them. The practical cultiva- 
tor has his concern in all these matters, so that it is of 
no, slight moment to him to realize what is the work 
which a plant does, and how it does it. 
How Plants Feed.—The nutritive process has to be 
entered on the creditor side as a receipt. The plant will 
indeed feed uffon itself for a time, or rather it will feed 
upon what its predecessor left it as an inheritance for this 
very purpose, or upon the stores accumulated in the plant 
itself during the preceding season ; thus, when a seed, or 
rather the young plant within the seed, begins to grow, it 
is at first unable to forage for itself, but it depends for 
its sustenance on the materials laid up for its use during 
the preceding season by the parent plant. So the bud of 
a tree, awakening into life, and beginning its career as a 
shoot which is to bear leaves and flowers, derives its first 
meals from the reserves accumulated the autumn previ- 
ously in the parent branch, Very generally a little water, 
