Of Vegetables. 231 
particularly wheat into tares, and tares again into wheat. 
In anfwer to this, which is one of the flrongefl ob¬ 
jections again!! that opinion, Malphigi replies, that he is 
not fully fatisfied as to the truth of the objection; for 
that both himfelf and his friends making the experiment, 
no metamorphofis of the wheat fucceeded : but grant¬ 
ing the metamorphofis, it is the foil, or the air, or 
the culture that is in fault. Now, therefore, from a mor¬ 
bid, and monflrous condition of nature, there is no in¬ 
ferring her genuine and permanent flate. 
That experiment related in the following feCtion, of 
the orange kernel, which Mr. Leeuwenhoek made to 
germinate in his pocket, is a plain demonflration, that the 
plant, and all that belongs to it, was aCtually in the feed 
itfelf. 
Of the feed of oranges. 
T HE procefs of nature in the vegetation of plants, 
is very accurately deliver’d by Mr. Leeuwenhoek, 
to the effect following, by an orange kernel which he 
made to germinate in his pocket, viz. 
The kernels of oranges being divefted of their outer 
membrane, will appear as fig. 451. on one fide of which 
lies a firing a, which caufes a little protuberance in the 
frrft fkin ; from this firing, not only the feed, but alfo 
the plant within it, receive their increafe and nourifhment, 
and to which through the fecond membrane, it extends 
its fmall veffels to the feat of the plant. Mr. Leeuwen¬ 
hoek was of opinion, that this firing does aCluallv com¬ 
prehend in itfelf, as many diflind veffels as are to be 
found in the orange-tree when arrived at its full matu¬ 
rity b . For, fays he, if all thefe veffels were not in the 
Q_4 young 
b Phil. Tranf. No. 287. 
