OF FOREST-TREES. 35 



produce the tallest and goodliest trees and plants, in stature and other cHAP. 

 properties far exceeding those of the same species, born in the cold North ; 

 so as what is a giant in the one, becomes a pumilo, and, in comparison. 



spread themselves in a horizontal direction, as being the best adapted for receiving the 

 rains and dews. The radicle, every hour increasing in size and vigour, pushes itself 

 deeper in the earth, from which it now draws some nutritive particles. At the same 

 time the leaves of the germ, being of a succulent nature, assist the plant, by attracting 

 from the atmosphere such particles as their tender vessels are fit to convey. These 

 particles, however, are of a watery kind, and have not in their own nature a sufficiency 

 of nutriment for the increasing plant. Vegetables and animals, during their tender states, 

 require a large share of balmy nourishment. As soon as an animal is brought into life, the 

 milk of its mother is supplied in a liberal stream, while the tender germ seems only to 

 have the crude and watery juices of the earth for its support. In that, however, we are 

 deceived. The Author of Nature, with equal eye, watches over the infancy of all his 

 works. The animal enjoys the milky humour of its parent. The vegetable lives upon a 

 similar fluid, though differently supplied. For its use the farinaceous lobes are melted 

 down into a milky juice, which, as long as it lasts, is conveyed to the tender plant by 

 means of innumerable small vessels, which are spread through the substance of the lobes. 

 These vessels enter the body of the germ, and perform the office of an umbilical chord. 

 Without this supply of balmy liquor, the plant must inevitably have perished; its root 

 being then too small to absorb a sufficiency of food, and its body too weak to assimilate 

 it into nourishment. How beautiful is the resemblance between this and the imagery of 

 Lucretius ! 



Hinc ubi qusque loci regio opportuna dabalur, 

 . . Crescebant uteri terra; radicibus apti : 



Quos ubi tempore mature patefecerat astas 

 Infantum fugiens humorem, aurasque petissens, 

 Convertebat ibi natura foramina terrse, 

 Et succum venis cogebat fundere apertis 

 Consimilem lactis, sicut nunc foeniina quseque 

 Cum peperit, dulci repletur lacte, quod omnis 



Impetus in mammas convertitur ille aliment!. Lib, v. 1. 807. 



Turnips, and all the tribe of Brassicas, in opposition to most of the leguminous and farina- 

 ceous plants, spread their seminal leaves upon the surface. These leaves contain all the 

 oil of the seed, which, when diluted by the moisture of the atmosphere, forms an 

 emulsion of the most nourishing quality. How similar is this juice to the milk of animals ! 

 On account of its sweetness, the seminal leaves are greedily devoured by the fly. This 

 demonstrably proves that oil constitutes the nourishment of plants in their tender state ; 

 and, by a fair inference, we may suppose that it also nourishes them as they advance 



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