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CHAPTER VII. 
OF THE FRUIT. 
The fruit, which is mechanically destined as a mere protec- 
tion to the seed, by which its race is to be maintained, is also, 
next to the wood, the most important part in the productions 
of vegetation. It constitutes the principal part of the food, 
especially in winter, of birds and small animals ; it is often 
more ornamental than the flowers themselves, and it con- 
tributes most materially to the necessities and luxuries of 
mankind. When ripe, it falls from the plant, and, borne down 
by its weight, lies on the ground at the foot of the individual 
that produced it : here its seeds vegetate, when it decays, and a 
crop of new individuals arises from the base of the old one; but, 
as plants produced in such a manner would soon choke and 
destroy each other, nature has provided a multitude of ways 
for their greater dispersion. Many are carried to distant spots 
by the animals which eat them : others, provided with a sort 
of wings, such as the samara, and the pappus of Compositae, 
fly away upon the wind to seek a distant station ; others scat- 
ter their seeds abroad by an explosion of the pericarp caused 
by a sudden contraction of the tissue ; many, falling upon the 
surface of streams, are carried along by the current; while 
others are dispersed by a variety of methods which it would 
be tedious to enumerate. 
The fruit, during its growth, is supported at the expense 
of the sap generally : but most especially of that which had 
been previously accumulated for its maintenance. This is 
less apparent in perennial or ligneous plants than in annual 
ones, but is capable of demonstration in both. Knight has 
well observed, that in annual fruit-bearing plants, such as the 
melon, if a fruit is allowed to form at a very early period of 
the life of the plant, as, for instance, in the axil of the third 
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