130 PLANT LIFE ON THE FARM. 
there are many leaves, and they are not often all 
affected in the same way at the same time; and, more- 
over, in the case of plants other than “annuals,” the 
fall and death of the leaves does not involve the death of 
the plant, as before explained. Even in the case of 
annuals, the life, like the nutritive matter, goes out of 
the leaves only to enter the seed. 
Successor thus follows predecessor in one invariable 
rhythm, and although the limits of the individual exis- 
tence can be but too readily recognized, the real end of 
life, so far as the whole race of living creatures—whether 
plant or animal—is concerned, is as incapable of being 
appreciated by the physiologist as is its beginning. 
