The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1902-05-14

their natural color and form. In an
other week or two, if nothing inter-
feres, bud appears between the two
seed leaves at the end of the stem,
and under lens the rudiments of a
new pair of leaves may be seen and a
new joint Of the stem forms to support
them. This is normal growth. It
goes on repeating itself until the
plant reaches its perfect development
and exhausts itself in whatever
may be the supreme function Of it's ex-
istence.
What have described is merely
typical. The variety Of methods and
processes by which nature accomplish
es it's ends is as great as that in spe-
cies Of vegetable life. On this sub
ject Prof. Gray says: "While the
same kind of plant always groas in
exactly the same way, different kinds
differ almost as much at the beginning
as they do aftcrward. The great va
riety which We observe among The
herbs and shrubs and trees around us
in foliage, fruit, flower and every
thing-gives to vegetation one Of its
greatest charms. We would soon tire
Of plant or flowers made after exactly
one pattern, however beautiful. We
enjoy variety
This is the miracle Of spring. The
how is perfectly Ineligible, since ma
turc never does anything in obedience
to whim OF fancy of the moment; the
Why is part Of the infinite mystery.
But the miracle does not end with the
beginnings Of plant life. The sun
worshiper is tie true philosopher of
natural religion. Tie creative agen-
cics of plant life are found in the sun s
rays.
To speak more specifically, plants
by the aid of the sun light and heat
remove certain substances from what
seem to be their more natural combina-
tons, and fixing them in other comb
nations, store them up in their own
structures. 1t builds up its woody
fibre from carbon extracted from the
carbonic acid of the air. The sap, en-
riched by the carbon thus acquired, is
curdled into cells and hardened into
wood, and so perfect is the economy
of nature in the conservation of ener-
gy that when, as wood or coal, the
plant is resolved into its constituent
elements in burning, it gives out en-
crgy exactly equivalent to that ex-
pended in producing the plant. The
late Canon Kingsley, poet of science,
traces this storage and liberation Of
sun power i a beautiful passage sug-
gested by the glowing Goals in the
crate before him, which I have pleas
ure in quoting:
| GAS AND SCNBEAMS.
"The coal on the fire, the table at
which write-what are they? Gas
and sunbeams. The life Of the grow
ing plant seized hold Of the gases in
the eir and in the soil-of the carbon
ic acid, the atmosphere, the water,
Qor that, too is gas); it drank them in
through it's ro otlets, it breathed them
into sap and bud and leaf and flower.
had also to drink in the sunbeam,
that mysterious and complex force
which is forever pouring from the sun
and making itself powerfully palpable
to our senses us light aud heat. So
the life Of the plant seized upon the
sunbeams and absorbed them, buried
them in itself, no longer as light and
heat, but as invisible chemical force,
locking it up forever in its woody
fibre. Lord Lytton told us long ago,
in beautiful song, how the wind and
the beam loved the rose, but nature s
poetry is grander than mans. The
wind and the beam loved the rose so
we'll that they made the rose; or, rath-
er, the rose took the wind and the
beam and built up, out of them. by her
own inner life, her exquisite texture,
hue and fragrance"