LETTER XVIII. 



205 



with bread. Nature, however, has been pleased not 

 to lay this additional burden on him. Enough for 

 her that he should toil and sweat for the supply of his 

 daily recurring wants. She has herself anticipated 

 and supplied his higher but more prospective wants in 

 respect of timber. Nay, her supplies have ever been 

 in advance and greatly in excess of man's numbers 

 and man's wants, while they have been co-extensive 

 with man's occupancy of all the habitable parts of 

 the earth." 



24. Further still. Both by buds producing trees 

 and by seeds multiplying their numbers, and likewise 

 by apphances (such as geology is conversant with) as 

 well for preserving from decay the timber thus pro- 

 duced as for changing its physical qualities, provi- 

 sion has been made quite independently of man, and 

 long before man's appearance on the earth, for the 

 production of CoaL The manifold uses of this sub- 

 stance lie beyond my province, as do those of timber. 

 But I beg you will bear in mind that since trees, as 

 such, come and can come only of the biid^ so to the 

 bud is man beholden for the advantages which both 

 timber and coal have given him. So important in the 

 economy of Nature is the Bud ! — 1 am, &c. 



