Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1874-01-22

/ An essayist in the old Spectator remark.
! ed, more than century ago, that if wars
/ did nothing else they taught us geogra-
/ ply! One cannot help thinking that if
/ every man were to avail himself of all the
/ circumstances of his daily life, to intel.
| lectually profit thereby, what a learned
( generation we should become. long before
we arrived at the patriarchal age of three
score years and ten. Ruskin somewhere
/ says that few people notice the most COR
geous scenery in the world-the scenery
| of cloud land, Immediately over their
I heads The same may be said of the
/ knowledge which greets us in a hundred
ways every day of our lives, and lies ready
for Interpretation beneath the thinnest and
most transparent Of coverings. That
there is pleasure in the mere acquire
ment of knowledge, is evident from the
cOntented lives of those whOmOst ardentlv
pursue it. Still, it is of little use preach
ing"-there will always be a chosen few
who will devote themselves to the investi-
cation of Natures mysteries, who will be
selected to enter her "holy of holes" and
make known to their brethren the enigmas
of the sacred oracle
"1he glory Of the summer has depart
ed, )" and left us, as its relies, the withered
leaves under whose cool shade we de
lighted not many weeks ago. Vegetable
nature has done her work, and now re-
tires into humble life, until the heat of
another summer sun shall restore her
activities. Every plant has brought
forth the fruit after its kind" and now
gives us an opportunity of inquiring into
the nature of that well-known but mystic
riOus process, whereby not only Is ar
rangement made for the perpctuation of
species, but for spreading a most bounti-
full table in the wilderness for man and
beast! The fruitng of plants, shrubs and
trees, is one of the most wonderful facts
in organic Nature-one that we are better
understanding every day, as we come to
know the meaning of the various organs
and features in vegetable physiology.
Our lnOwlcIe of these facts and princi-
plies tends, as all true knowledge always
does, towards simplitication, Goethe,
with a scientific training, but with a
poets genuine insight into the meanings OF
Nature, long ago showed that every plant
was composed merely of two parts, stem
and leaf The root is but prOl0ngatiOn
of the stem-the bark an extension of the
leaf And philosophical botany has gone
further still, by demonstrating that the
Towering parts of plants are themselves
but modified leayes-moditied, it may be,
during the immensely long periods of the
geological past until they reached their
present perfection
The doctrine of individuality nowhere
puzzles netaphysiCian more than in a
tree, Is a tree an individual or an asso-
citation of individuals? Certainly, if a
compound coral is an association Of an
assemblage of animals whose association
is matter of physiological accident, II
tree ought to be considered the same In
both instances individuals are bound to-
gether by a community of position, food
and parentage Both botanists and horti-
culturists are now well aware that the diff
ference between leafbuds and flower buds
is exceedingly small, owing to the ease
with which the foiar parts can be meta
mOrphosed into floral.
BY cramping the roots Of plant, a
gardener well knows he can transform
what would otherwise be leaves into flow
ering parts, and therefore into fruits.
This is the reason why we lop off the
early shoots of our truit-trees, in order to
direct the nutrlmcnt into the towering
and tructitying parts instead OF allowing
il to be spent in the growth Of Ito us) use
less tissue. The creeping roots of our
strawberries are rcligiously cut off for
similar reasons-for in this case, as of
some Of the lower animals, propagation
takes two-fold shape, by Towering Gas
animals by eggs and by means Of a sto-
loniterouS root Gas such animals as com
pound corals and hydras by that process
termed "budding.D
Every flower, therefore, is as distinct an
an individual as a coral animal, and is
even better able to propagate new indi-
viduals. One does so by specializing GER
tain parts of the tissue to form oya or
eggs, the other to form seeds.
The analogy may be carried further
still. All animals are provided with
certain store of nutriment, 20 assist in
their growth, until they can obtain sus.
tcnance for themselves. In the eggs Of all
living creatures, the bulk contains three
fOurths of such stored up material, which
is unconsciOusly and impercaptiby alb
sorbed into the structure Of the newly de-
veloped animal Similarly, rs is seen in
our beans, peas, acOrns, etc, there IS a sup
ply of albumen and starch for the nour-
ishment of the young sccd-germ, until it
can strike root into the ground on its own
account, assimilate the soluble mineral
matter it finds there, and deoXidize the
atmosphere OF its necessary aliment.
Ii is this surrounding of the embryo
plant, or "seed, - as we term it, with GER
tain organic substances, which gives rise
to what we call fruits But the botanical
meaning of fruit and the popular inter
probation of it are widely at variance
The former limits it solely to that which
contains the germ Of the future plant;
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