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produce the tallest and goodliest trees and plants, in stature and other chap.properties far exceeding those of the same species, born in the cold hiorth; ^"v - "so as what is a giant in the one, becomes a pumilo, and, in comparison,
spread themselves In a horizontal direction, as being the best adapted for receiving therains and dews. The radicle, every hour increasing in size and vigour, pushes itselfdeeper into the earth, from which it now draws some nutritive particles. At the sametime the leaves of the germ, being of a succulent nature, afsist the plant, by attractingfrom the atmosphere such particles as their tender vefsels are fit 1 to convey. Theseparticles, however, are of a watery kind, and have not in their own nature a sufficiencyof nutriment for the increasing plant. Vegetables and animals, during their tender states,require a large share of balmy nourishment. As soon as an animal is brought into life, themilk of its mother is supplied in a liberal stream, while the tender germ seems only tohave the crude and watery juices of the earth for its support. In' that, however, we aredeceived. The Author of Nature, with equal eye, watches over the infancy of all hisworks. The animal enjoys the milky humour of its parent. The vegetable lives upon a.similar fluid, though differently supplied. For its use the farinaceous lobes are melteddown into a milky juice, which, as long as it lasts, is conveyed to the tender plant bymeans of innumerable small vefsels, which are spread through the substance of the lobes.Thefe vefsels enter the body of the germ, and perform the office of an umbilical chord.Without this supply of balmy liquor, the plant must inevitably have perished; its rootbeing then too small to absorb a sufficiency of food, and its body too weak to afs imitateit into nourishment. Hew beautiful is the resemblance between this and the imagery ofLucretius !
Hinc ubi quseque loci regio opportuna dabatur,
Crescebant uteri terra; radicibus apti:
, Quos ubi tempore maturo patefecerat aetasInfantum fugiens humorem, aurasque petifsens,
Convertebat ibi natura foramina terra;,
Et succum venis cogebat fundere apertisConsimilem lactis, sicut nunc foenjina qua’queCum peperit, dulci repletur lacte, quod omnis
Impetus in.mammas convertitur ille alimenti. Lib. v. 1. 807.
Turnips, and all the tribe of Brafsicas, in opposition to most of the legumenous and farina-ceous plants, spread their seminal leaves upon the surface. These leaves contain all theoil of the seed, which, when diluted by the moisture of the atmosphere, forms anemulsion of the most nourishing quality. How similar is this juice to the milk of animals!On account of its sweetnefs, the seminal leaves are greedily devoured by the fly. Thisdemonstrably proves that oil constitutes the nourishment of plants in their tender state;and, by a fair inference, we may suppose that it also nourishes them as they advance
M.2