(XA) 
of blade and stalk and stem and leaf and pedal and calyx, in flower and plant 
varieties: should learn something of their anatomy, physiology, biology. 
Oh, in this, certainly, he will clearly perceive, with ever intensifying awe, 
evidences of exhaustless Design that bespeaks a Supreme and Infinite Intelligence 
who plans, orders, and conserves, all the arrangements of the universal apparatus 
regularly performing its stated functions—above, beneath, around! And not 
only will Botanical Analysis bear witness, in a general way, to the omnipresent 
action of an All-Wise Projector; but, furthermore, the congenial and aptly pro¬ 
portioned habitat of germs, and roots, and herbs, and bulbs, and boughs, with 
their gauged capacities for wide transplantation; their remarkably ingenious 
powers of exuberant propagation, whether in their native lands or when, in seed 
and slip, wafted afar by wind and water or borne by fish and bird; their unswerv¬ 
ing, immutability of specific generation—their pronounced habits and methods— 
and yet withal, their pliant flexibility under given conditions, natural or man- 
directed, to melt and blend into those interminable varieties, sub-varieties, and 
queer modifications—the facility of the grafting process being but one instance 
among many—their surprising advances toward the Animal Kingdom, as in the 
case of Zoophytes—-similar inter-connecting links to be met with in all the three 
Departments presided over by Natural History—and, in fine, the unfailing fecun¬ 
dity realized and manifest in their prodigious productiveness and prolific yields, 
especially in propitious soils, with other favoring environment—ah! these and 
like plant-wonders will also make known, by their every deliberate detail and 
elaborate effect, the Immortal Author of Life, the Source and Bestower of all 
vitality, who produces and reproduces continually, and will attest the thoughtful 
movements of the Divine Hand that ever directs and shapes all those countless 
forms of organic existences. Lo! His fiat had gone forth, and the mandate was 
to be permanent of execution: “Let the earth bring forth the green herb, and 
such as may seed, and the fruit-tree after its kind, which may have seed in itself 
upon the earth. And it was so done. All the days of the earth. 
seed-time and harvest shall not cease.” 
IV. 
Nor will the Uses to which the creations of the plant-realm have time and 
again been applied, be deemed less worthy of admiration, in their- ingeniously 
studied adaptation to life’s varying situations and in the truly handsome effects 
resulting therefrom. 
