INFLUENCE OF CLIMATE ON PLANTS. 
155 
Knight termed the prepared blood of the living plant, in so far as both are nutritive 
and living fluids. Then if blood be capable of organization, why may not the vital 
mmhium also become organized ? But the new theory assumes that it is the seat 
of life and of organization ; though it admits that not a trace of anything beyond a 
colourless homogeneous mass appears in the first stage of its existence. Herein, 
however, we perceive no difficulty ; for not the slightest trace of organization can 
be detected in the white of an egg prior to incubation ; yet certain it is that, with- 
out access of any nutritive fluid from without, the yolk and white become organized 
under the stimulus of vital heat alone. 
The principle of life resists putrefaction or decay ; chemical energy cannot act 
upon it, nor upon any living body, unless it first destroy the vitality of that body. 
Now the sap, be the degree of atmospheric heat what it may, never runs into 
fermentation while the life of the plant which it sustains is preserved ; the yolk of 
the egg undergoes no degree of putrefaction under the high temperature commu- 
nicated by the breast of the sitting hen ; the blood, whether it be fluid or solidified 
within the limng body, does not undergo decomposition. It is just therefore to 
infer, that each of these supporters of life and increase, is itself alive, and endowed 
with a quality which fits it to become organized. Much more might be said, and 
indeed may be found in the article to which allusion has already been made ; 
perhaps enough has been advanced to excite deep and earnest reflection. The 
subject is profoundly mysterious, and we believe that its depths can never be 
fathomed by the finite understanding. 
INFLUENCE OF CLIMATE ON PLANTS.* 
SOLAR HEAT. 
The facts submitted in our last article justify the inference that before any flowers 
or fruit can be produced, — at least, any quantity of them, — the plant must undergo a 
complete process of evaporation, whereby its aqueous fluids will be evolved, and its 
vital substance matured ; but whether it is from its inability at that period to pro- 
duce real shoots, or contrariwise, by the concentration and consummation of its 
mechanism to effbct this greatest of vegetable efforts, we cannot take upon our- 
selves to determine. Due maturation, such as the vigorous stimulation of heat, 
with only so small a supply of moisture as is sufficient to carry on the economy of 
the system, will induce, is undoubtedly the main process necessary for the extension 
of reproductive organs. To suppose this a result of repose (as some recent authors 
have done) is to ascribe the consequences of the exertion of an active agent, to the 
quiescence of an inert condition. 
Many practical directions might be based upon the position we have thus been 
attempting to establish ; a few of the most prominent of which we will here 
* Continued from page 134. 
