SPONTANEOUS GROWTH OF VEGETATION. 
315 
REMARKS ON THE SPONTANEOUS GROWTH 
OF VEGETATION. 
While editing the Farmer’s Gazette, a few years 
ago, I took occasion to throw out some facts and 
reflections under the head of the “ Spontaneous 
Growth of Forest Trees, Grasses, and Other Vege¬ 
tables,” for the purpose of eliciting further discus¬ 
sion among my readers, on the physiological prin¬ 
ciples of vegetation. Believing that you may find 
it a topic suitable for your journal, I take the liberty 
to offer the substance of my reflections, which may 
not have come under general observation. 
There is something seemingly inconsistent in 
the established principles of vegetation, in the suc¬ 
cession and apparently spontaneous growth of 
trees, grasses, and other vegetables • by the spring¬ 
ing up of a new crop without the planting of seed. 
These occurrences take place without the ordinary 
aid of human instrumentality. They are, so far as 
we can ascertain, natural or spontaneous produc¬ 
tions. In the “ Memoirs of the Philadelphia Agri¬ 
cultural Society,” there are named many well-au¬ 
thenticated instances of this sort. New grasses, 
new plants, as well as trees, are found to spring up 
in recently-cleared lands, without the planting of 
scions, or seeds, and where no seed, nor trees, of 
those species could be found to have previously 
existed in any part of the country surrounding. 
Go into a wilderness, twenty miles from any clear¬ 
ing, or tract under cultivation, or where there is 
a growth of clover, and cut away the timber and 
brush, so as to let the rays of the sun to the earth, 
and the second or third summer after, without 
moving the surface of the soil, a luxuriant crop 
of white clover will cover the ground. The appli¬ 
cation of a light sprinkling of plaster, also, with¬ 
out stirring the soil, even in an old, worn-out field, 
will cause white clover as well as red, to spring 
up luxuriantly, in a few months, where neither 
seed nor root of their kind had been known to exist 
for ages. 
In New Jersey, and most of the states south of 
it, large forests of pine, exclusively occupy exten¬ 
sive tracts. Cut away the pine, or burn it off, and 
let the ground lie for a few years, untilled, and a 
new forest, almost entirely of oak, will spring up, 
and cover the whole clearing, where, previously, 
neither an oak nor an acorn had been seen or 
known to exist within many miles. Nurseries of 
young oaks, formed by nature, in this way, are 
also found in the centre of extensive forests of 
pine. 
In other instances, pine has been known to suc¬ 
ceed trees of other species. In the course of the 
last century, Avhite pine was known to spring up 
spontaneously, or without any planting, in Dux- 
bury, Massachusetts, 1 without having previously 
been known to grow in that vicinity. Sixty or 
seventy years ago, a man was living in that town, 
who remembered the first pine tree that appeared' 
in that region. Yet, about forty years since, pine 
constituted about one eighth part of the timber of 
that section. 
The late Judge Peters, says, that, in South Caro¬ 
lina, in 1802, a disease commenced in the pine 
woods, that destroyed large forests, which have 
since been succeeded by a growth of hickory and 
oak ;. and that a total change of timber occur¬ 
red within his memory in a tract of his own, of 
about 800 acres, in Northampton county, Pennsyl, 
vania. “ Previous to the revolution,” continues 
he, “I knew it to be covered with pitch pine. It 
was called the pine tract. The first growth of tim¬ 
ber was blown down by a tornado, and consumed 
by the fires of the woods, a mischievous practice 
which was common in that quarter. It is now en¬ 
tirely re-clothed with oak, hickory, and other valu¬ 
able, well-grown, and thriving timber, and scarcely 
a pine tree is to be seen.” He also knew, as he 
says, “ a grove of white pine thrown up spontane¬ 
ously in old fields, where no timber of that species 
had previously grown, and far from any such trees.” 
In the state of Ohio, I have noticed, and believe 
the same occurs in other beach and maple lands, that 
where the timber has been destroyed by tornadoes, 
the succeeding growth is wild cherry, with a mixture 
of white ash. Dr. Mease, formerly secretary of 
the Philadelphia Agricultural Society, says the same 
occurs in the beach and maple lands in Pennsylva¬ 
nia. He expresses an opinion that the growth of 
these kinds of timber began in 1794 or ’5, and is of 
the belief that beech and maple succeed hemlock, 
and that the natural successors to beach and maple 
are wild cherry and white ash. 
Numerous instances of this natural succession of 
trees, and growth of plants' occur under circum¬ 
stances altogether irreconcilable with the known 
principles of propagation by scions, or by seeds. 
Whence then are they derived ? Upon what 
principles do they originate'? Judge Peters and 
other writers, of Pennsylvania, believed they are 
a new and spontaneous production, brought into 
existence by the new order, or state of things, re¬ 
sulting from clearing and cultivation of the ground j 
and the. effects seem to justify that opinion. 
Every philosophical and chemical principle 
which is implanted in the vegetable creation, 
was originally the same that has since been devel¬ 
oped by science • and to suppose that the produc¬ 
tion of plants, or trees, are, in any manner, incon¬ 
sistent with the Mosaic history of the creation, 
would make a contradiction between the word and 
works of God, and amount to an impeachment of 
his immutable laws. But the truths and principles, 
expressed in the former, are completely corroborated 
by the latter. ^ 
Now, what were the inherent principles upon 
which grasses, herbs, and trees Avere originally 
formed, or made to grow ? For they did not rise 
out of the earth instantaneously, at bidding, as La¬ 
zarus did, but grew up, as they now grow. 
By chemical analyses, it has been ascertained 
that \ r egetables are composed of certain elements, 
or substances, which, by the influence of heat, light, 
and moisture, are made to assume and develop cer¬ 
tain specific organic forms, as is manifested in 
grasses, trees, and herbs, in each of Avhich is im¬ 
planted, by the Creator, the principle, or power, of 
yielding seed and fruit after its kind. The elements 
and principles, or qualities, contained in the origi¬ 
nal formation of vegetation were precisely the 
same which are contained in the same kinds at the 
present day • because the seeds of both are alike 
“ after, their kind.” 
And what are the truths of Divine Revelation in 
this subject ? From the Mosaic account, the order 
