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GERMINATION OF THE SEED. 
the vegetables of the tropics, or those of the poles at the equa- 
tor. Nature is here stronger than man. That something may 
be done by art to promote the growth of the tropical plants in 
our climate is true, but how different are the same plants with 
us, from what they are in their own genial climate ; we toil and 
Avatch for years to nurture an orange or lemon tree, wffiich after 
all is stinted in its growth, while in its own native home it would 
have grown spontaneously in luxuriant beauty. 
The diffusion of seeds completes the circle of vegetation and 
closes the scene of vegetable life. The shrubs and trees have 
lost their foliage — the withered herbs decompose, and restore to 
the earth the elements which they have drawn from its bosom. 
The earth stripped of its beauty, seems sinking into old age ; 
but although unseen by us, and unmarked the processes of nature 
by too many among men, innumerable germs have been formed, 
which wait but the favorable warmth to decorate with new bril- 
liancy this terrestrial scene. 
So fruitful is nature, that a surface a thousand times more 
extended than that of our globe, would not be sufficient for the 
vegetables which the seeds of one single year would produce, if all 
should be developed ; but the destruction of seeds is very great, 
either eaten by animals, or left to perish in unfavorable situa- 
tions. Those which are preserved constitute but a small pro- 
portion of the whole ; they are either carried into the clefts of 
rocks, or buried beneath the ruins of vegetables ; protected from 
the cold, they remain inactive during the winter season, and germi- 
nate as soon as the early warmth of spring is felt. Then the 
botanist who considers with a curious eye the vegetable species 
with which the earth begins to be clothed, seeing successively 
all the types or representations of past generations of plants, ad- 
mires the power of the Author of nature, and the immutability 
of His laws. 
LECTURE XVI. 
Germination of the Seed. 
We have now considered the various organs of plants, we 
have traced them through their successive stages of develope- 
ment, from the root to the bud, the leaf and flower, from ’the 
flower to the fruit and seed. We have seen in imagination the 
vegetable world fading under the change of temperature ; were 
this appearance of death in the vegetable world presented to us 
Circle of vegetation completed — concluding remarks. 
