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THE DOUBLE STOCK. 
NATURAL HISTORY. 
ARTICLE XI.—THE DOUBLE-STOCK, CAUSED BY DISEASE. 
BY MR. WM. PHILLIPS. 
“ Intemperance 
In meats and drinks, which in the earth shall bring diseases dire.” 
Plants are so far assimilated to the animal creation as not only to 
be subject to disease, when overstimulated with food, but the disease 
or deformity in the vegetable kingdom is carried on from generation 
to generation. So in the human race the hectic blush sometimes 
marks a whole family afflicted with pulmonary disease, though in 
others it settles only on one or two members of the family, and it 
sometimes passes one generation and afflicts the next race. So also 
in disorders of the brain, the lurking malady passes from family to 
family, tainting one member in his own person and another in his 
progeny, till the disease has destroyed the race or is itself overcome 
by some happy accident of nature. 
Now the double-stock, having its seed vessels and parts of fructi¬ 
fication transformed into petals, either by a diseased seed or excess 
of nourishment caused by rich earth, cannot perform its duty to na¬ 
ture by replenishing its species by seed. This beautiful though un¬ 
natural flower would therefore soon become extinct, were not florists 
careful in sowing the seeds of the single or natural flowers growing 
near those which have double blossoms. On examining a number 
of the double blossoms, we sometimes find a single anther concealed 
between the petals, the fecundating properties of which, although as 
infinitely small as pestilential particles in the air, are sufficient to carry 
disease to every pod of seed, the stigma of which it shall have passed 
over either by the aid of the air or the accidental assistance of insects. 
Bees and other insects, which live on the nectar of plants, seldom 
rest on flowers that have become so double as to exclude the parts of 
fructification, because there is no honey or nectar where there are 
neither anthers nor stigma. But if a single anther he growing in a 
double flower, the bees are sure to discover it, and thus they convey 
the pollen to more perfect plants, since Nature who is so perfect in 
all her works, has not inclined the bee to luxuriate indiscriminately 
from flower to flower of different generas, for then would the pollen 
of the melon be washed on the stigma of a rose or of a poppy ; but 
these industrious insects may be watched from blossom to blossom 
of every variety or species of a plant without touching on one of a 
