26S 
THE LADIES' FLORAL CABINET. 
delight of all nations. But in design, in texture, in 
skill, and in finish, plants are far in advance of all hu¬ 
man manufacturers. No skill of man can create a 
living Daisy: but observe that humble plant, spreading 
its few simple leaves on the ground—it takes a few 
atoms of earthy matter and compounds them with some 
rain drops, and a sheathful of sunbeams, aud forthwith 
the “wee. modest, crimson-tipped flower” opens its 
eyes to gaze upon the sun. 
From these general and necessarily vague remarks, 
let us descend, or, shall we not rather say. ascend to 
particulars. The basis of all manufacture is raw ma¬ 
terial. "Without this nothing can be made. No man. 
no plant, can make something out of nothing. Cut off 
your supply of cotton by a bad season, or a fratricidal 
war. and your mills are stopped, your hands unem¬ 
ployed. you have a cotton famine: and so of wool. iron, 
timber, or any other raw material. Whence, then, 
coines the raw material of plants? They are rooted to 
one spot: they have neither carriers, railways, nor fleets 
of merchant-vessels at command. How do they get 
their raw material to keep their factories going? In the 
olden rimes rocks were rent, avalanches rolled, water 
dashed and leaped with wild and hurried steps, strata 
were denuded and upheaved, volcanoes shot out flames 
of fire and showered forth red hot ashes, and myraids 
upon myraids of living things lived and died, and found 
graves in this great globe—the earth—before the raw 
material for the basement floor of this great manufac¬ 
tory was provided; and new plants draw their raw 
material from the earth, from the waters above, upon, 
and under the earth, and from the invisible air. 
The wind is freighted with fresh supplies of raw 
material for plants, the clouds are their water-carriers, 
the lightning their swift-winged messenger to announce 
their wants in eloudland, or across the earth, or ocean, 
and bring ridings of coming cargoes. The four so-called 
elements of the ancients—earth, air, fire and water—are 
laid under contribution by plants. They absorb, utilize 
matter in all states and conditions: solid, liquid, gaseous, 
visible and invisible, clean or foul, come equally wel¬ 
come to plants. We hear of great things being done 
by the use of waste. Old and apparently useless mat¬ 
ters are tom up and fined down, and new products 
spring forth as if by magic. Fortunes have been built 
up out of shoddy. Plants are likewise distinguished in 
this line. Theirs is the largest shoddy factory in the 
world. They are Nature’s universal scavengers, al¬ 
ways sweeping-up, utilizing, transforming, glorifying 
dirt, shoddy, waste, and converting it into products of 
the highest value. Nothing escapes the keen, eager 
search of plants. They question the winds in their 
hurried courses, and ease them of their loads. They 
invite the dew to adorn them with its necklace of 
pearls,that they may drink in its nourishing sweetness. 
They tenderly, firmly hug all kinds of earth, that they 
may take all they need out of it. They run up into 
and wave themselves about in the air, that they may 
feed on its carbon and ammonia. In one word, their 
field for the supply of raw material is the world, and 
having done their best to empty it, they turn their 
pleading flowers and inviting leaves toward the sun, 
and proceed to d.> their utmost to absorb all its heat, to 
use up its light, to exhaust its chemical forces, and 
empty it of its energia, or life-giving powers. Such is 
the boldest possible outline of some of the chief sources 
from which plants draw their supplies of raw material. 
No sooner are their factories furnished with these, than 
forthwith they liasteu to couvort thorn into finished 
products. But to this end motive-power is needed. 
Rest is the grave of production; motion its life. 
Whence this bustle and stir in these great centres of in¬ 
dustries? You are as busy as bees, either in tho act of 
manufacturing or in removing the tilings made from 
where they are not wanted to where they are. To alter 
the form, character, place of matter,these are the foun¬ 
dations of your industry, the basis of your commercial 
greatness. It is these pursuits that block your railways 
with traffic, crowd your river with shipping, fill your 
shops and warehouses with the riches and wealth of the 
globe. But the cause of all this is the moving power em¬ 
ployed upon raw material. Steam, human strength and 
skill keep all the machinery in motion, aud you are rich 
and prosperous in proportion to the time and energy 
with which productive force moves. Plants form no 
exception to these laws. They can manufacture noth¬ 
ing without moving force, and that forco is never 
absent unless it is bound in the non fetters of frost, or 
arrested by the cold grasp of death. True, wo cannot 
hear the rush of the sap, the heat that quickens falls 
softly on leaf and flower like the fond mother’s kiss on 
the lips or cheek of her sleeping infant. Chemical 
compositions or decompositions which are incessantly 
proceeding iu plant factories, give forth no sound. The 
lightning plays among leaves and flowers without 
scorching spot or hissing sound. The energia of the 
sun stimulates the life of the plant to the utmost, 
though the summons to awake is unheard by mortal 
ear. But is there, therefore, no motion? Nay, are 
not all the greatest movements iu Nature silent ? We 
hear not the stars in their silent courses. The daily 
revolution of the globe gives forth no crashing intona¬ 
tion. 
The motive power used in plant factories are various— 
heat, light, chemical affinity, and life, are probably the 
chief. It is impossible to dwell upon either of them. 
Life and heat are perhaps the most important, and be¬ 
tween them they do an amount of work that is perfectly 
astounding. We know little of either; possibly they are 
closely related, almost synonymous. Thesun, inasecond- 
ary sense, may be said to be the source of both, but they 
work everywhere to produce motion. Between them 
they set and keep all the fluid of plants in perpetual 
movement, and the e fluids are the carriers of nearly all 
that is needed to build up structure and manufacture 
produce. Independent of the force expended on pro¬ 
duction, plants perform other and highly important 
work. They pump a great proportion of the water of 
the world, and thus enrich and fructify by watering the 
earth. The sun is the greatest, strongest, raiser of water. 
But the sun and the atmosphere draw their supplies 
chiefly from the surface of the earth, rivers aud oceans. 
The roots of the trees go deeper down for their water, 
and the leaves of the trees distribute this water at a 
higher elevation. What the force of steam Is to your 
factories, these and other forces are to plant manufac¬ 
tories. They pervade, move, quicken, drive the entire 
machinery of production. Every part of the plant is 
set to work in extending, spurring,weaving, transform¬ 
ing, finishing something. The designs are most perfect, 
the products more varied than can be enumerated or 
imagined. Do you ask what plants make ? Rather en- 
