CH. ri. 



COURSE OF THE SAP. 



53 



different principles. No bud contains one leaf only, 

 and perhaps, ' a shoot-bud ' would be a more proper 

 name than ' a /^a/-bud.' But whether a bud contains 

 the germs of leaves and a shoot, or of a flower and 

 fruit, or of all these, these buds are all formed at the 

 same time, and in the year previous to their bursting. The 

 contents of each bud are preordained and prearranged 

 (in exquisite embryo) in the jorevious year. They are 

 the offspring of no second chemical cause, but of the 

 first cause. They are fairly conceived by the Creator, 

 and borne in the womb of the bud for perhaps nine 

 months. Any particular season of the year, or any 

 atmospheric chemistry consequent to any particular 

 season of the year, could no more change the contents 

 of these buds as shoots to fruits than it could change 

 lions to lambs. The generation of a new leaf is about 

 as much an affair of chemistry as the generation of an 

 animal is. And it is in consequence of each bud giving 

 rise to a family of leaves that all nature's growth is 

 symmetrical^ and not made up of Liebig's patchwork. 

 In the case of a second or midsummer shoot,* or of 



* I imagine that a second or midsTimmer shoot of the plane 

 would be impossible without the previous defoliation of the tree, 

 since the winter-buds are ensheathed in the footstalks of the 

 leaves. The plane, therefore, is essentially and necessarily de- 

 ciduous. And I have observed, at Madeira, that the plane is 

 for two or three months without leaves, though our oak may in 

 those climes almost be called an evergreen. The idea in Madeira 

 is, that the old leaves of the oak are only displaced by the burst- 

 ing of the spring buds. But the buds of every tree I know, 

 except the plane, may burst without displacing the leaves, a^a 

 they actually do in the second or midsummer shoot. 



