STUDY OF BOTANY. 195 around us, it must be expected from those who discriminate their kinds and study their properties. Of the benefits of natural science in the improvement of many arts, no one doubts. Our food, our medicine, our luxuries are improved by it. By the inquiries of the curious new acquisitions are made in remote countries, and our resources of various kinds are augmented. We find that gardening, the most elegant, and agriculture, the most useful of all arts, are improved only in those countries in which botany is made subservient to their advancement. And when a knowledge of this science is more generally diffused throughout our own country, we may expect to see it more frequently enriched with fields and adorned with gardens, which while they bestow honour on their possessors, shall prove a pleasant recreation to the old, and a useful study to the young. Nor should its influence on the moral character be disregarded. The late President Dwight was an eminent champion of the virtue which he practised. He often directed the attention of his pupils to Sweden, to point out the influence of natural history on the moral character of man. In that country botany is taught in the schools, and the habitation of her excellent children presents a cheering picture of domestic felicity. Their piety and their patriotism both flow from the same source; for while they examine the productions of their country, they become attached to its soil, and while they contemplate the works of their Maker, they are animated with the glowing spirit of devotion. Botany deserves our highest regard as the source of mental improvement. Nothing so powerfully attracts the notice of the young observer, as the gay, though fleeting beauty of flowers; yet these interesting objects serve to produce an accuracy of discrimination, which is the foundation of correct taste and sound judgment. To those whose minds and understandings are already formed, this study may be recommended, independently of all other considerations, as a rich source of innocent pleasure. Some people are ever inquiring what is the use of any particular plant? They con sider a botanist with respect, only as he may be able to teach them some profitable improvement, by which they may quickly grow rich, and be then perhaps no longer of any use to mankind or to themselves. They would permit their children to study botany, only because it might possibly lead 196 TEXTURE OF VEGETABLES. to professorships, or other lucrative preferment. These views are not blameable, but they are not the sole end of human existence. Is it not desirable to call the soul from the feverish agitation of worldly pursuits, to the contemplation of divine wisdom in the beautiful economy of nature? Is it not desirable to walk with God in the garden of creation, and hold converse with his providence? If such elevated feelings do not lead to the study of nature, it cannot be far pursued without rewarding the student by exciting them. The more we study the works of the Creator, the more wisdom, beauty, and harmony become manifest; and while we admire, it is impossible not to adore. "Soft roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers, In mingled clouds, to Him, whose sun exalts, Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints!" QUESTIONS.-1. What is Botany? 2. Why is the study of this science not a trifling employment? 3. What renders it a field for instruction and admiration? 4. What may we expect when a knowledge of this science is more generally diffused? 5. Why did Dr. Dwight often direct the attention of his pupils to Sweden? 6. How is botany a source of mental improvement? 7. How do some people regard a botanist? 8. How are these views to be considered, and what reply is made to them? LESSON 88. Texture of Vegetables. Longitudinally, running in the longest direction. EVERY part of a living plant is covered with a skin or membrane called the cuticle. In the root and trunk it is coarse and hard, while in the leaves, flowers, and tender shoots, it is a fine, colourless, and transparent film, not thicker than a cobweb. It is porous and admits of the passage of fluids from within as well as from without, but in a due and definite proportion in every plant. It not only protects the young tree from external injury, but it preserves our choicest fruit from premature decay, and without it, the leaf would lose its verdure, the flower its fragrance, and their transitory beauty would become still more evanescent. To wheat, TEXTURE OF VEGETABLES. 197 rye, and most kinds of grass, the cuticle is of the highest importance, for it supports their stalks and secures them from injuries. In these, and still more abundantly in some others, Sir Humphry Davy has discovered the existence of a flinty earth; and it is this which makes the ashes of burnt straw one of the best materials which can be employed in giving its finest polish to marble. The fruit of the peach and the leaf of the mullein have a cuticle covered with dense and rather harsh wool. Immediately under the cuticle of leaves and young stems is found a substance called the cellular integument. It is of a pulpy texture and the seat of colour. No plants are destitute of it, for it is the seat of operations indispensably necessary to healthy vegetation. When the cellular integument is removed, the outer surface of the bark presents itself, which in plants or branches that are only one year old, consists of one simple layer; but in the older branches and trunks of trees, it consists of as many layers as they are years old. The bark contains a great number of woody fibres, running for the most part longitudinally, which give it tenacity, and in which it differs very essentially from the parts already described. In the bark, the peculiar virtues or qualities of particular plants chiefly reside. Here we find in appropriate vessels the resin of the Fir, the astringent principle of the Oak, the fine and valuable bitter of the Peruvian Bark, and the exquisitely aromatic oil of the Cinnamon. Immediately under the bark is situated the wood, which forms the great bulk of trees and shrubs. When cut across it is found to consist of numerous concentric layers. Linnæus and most writers believe that one of these circular layers is formed every year, the hard external part being caused by the cold of winter; consequently, that the exact age of a sound tree when felled may be known by counting these rings. That the bark produces wood seems to have been proved beyond dispute, for plates of tin-foil have been introduced under the barks of growing trees, the wounds carefully bound up, and after some years, on cutting them across, the layers of new wood have been found on the outside of the tin. The centre or heart of the vegetable body, within the wood, contains the pith. Its texture is precisely similar to that of the cellular integument, being composed of cells 198 SAP AND SECRETIONS. which are seen to best advantage in the centre. These cells, which are unusually large in the Elder, are filled with fluids when young, but in old branches the fluids are gone and the cells are empty. Of its uses in the economy of vegetation, but little is known. QUESTIONS.-1. What is the cuticle of a plant? 2. How is it described and what are its uses? 3. Describe the cellular integument. 4. The bark. 5. The wood. 6. The pith, 7. What chiefly resides in the bark of plants? 8. What is said of the circular layers of wood? 9. How has it been shown that the bark produces the wood? LESSON 89. Sap and Secretions. Odoriferous, fragrant, perfumed. Propul'sion, the act of driving forward. Es'culent, good for food, eatable. THAT the whole vegetable body is an assemblage of tubes and vessels is evident to the most careless observer; and those who are conversant with the microscope and books relating to it, have frequent opportunities of observing how curiously these vessels are arranged, and how different species of plants, especially trees, differ from each other in the structure and disposition of them. It is familiar to every one that plants contain various substances, as sugar, gum, acids, odoriferous fluids, and others, to which their various flavours and qualities are owing; and a little reflection will satisfy us that such substances must each be lodged in proper cells and vessels to be kept distinct from each other. They are extracted, or secreted, from the common juice of the plant, and called its peculiar or secreted fluids. Various experiments and observations prove also that air exists in the vegetable body, and must likewise be contained in appropriate vessels. Besides these, we know that plants are nourished and invigorated by water, which they readily absorb, and which, by proper tubes or vessels, is quickly conveyed through their stalks and leaves. It is observed, moreover, that all plants, as far as any experiment has been made, contain a common fluid, which at certain seasons of the year is to be obtained in great quantity, and this is proper SAP AND SECRETIONS. 199 ly called the sap. It is really the blood of the plant, by which its whole body is nourished, and from which the peculiar secretions are made. The great motion, called the flowing of the sap, which is to be detected principally in the spring, and slightly in the autumn, is totally different from that constant propulsion of it which is going on in every growing plant. Its facility to run is the first step towards the revival of vegetation from the torpor of winter. Its exciting cause is heat, and the effect of heat is in proportion to the degree of cold to which the plant has been accustomed. The same principle accounts for the occasional flowing of the sap in autumn after a slight frost. Such a premature cold increases the sensibility of the plant to any warmth that may follow, and produces, in a degree, the same state of its constitution as exists after the long and severer cold of winter. The sap in its passage through the leaves and bark becomes quite a new fluid, possessing the peculiar flavour and qualities of the plant, and not only yielding woody matter for the increase of the vegetable body, but furnishing various secreted substances. These are chiefly found in the bark, and often in large and conspicuous vessels, as the turpentine-cells of the Fir tribe. In herbaceous plants, whose stems are only of annual duration, the perennial roots frequently contain these fluids in the most perfect state, nor are they, in such, confined to the bark, but deposited throughout the substance of the root, as in Rhubarb and Gentian. It may be useful to enumerate some of the most distinct secretions of vegetables. Gum or mucilage, a viscid substance of little flavour, exudes from many trees in the form of large drops or lumps, as in Plum, Cherry, and Peach trees. Resin is a substance soluble in spirits, and it differs according to the peculiar tree from which it is obtained. The more refined and volatile secretions of a resinous nature are called essential oils, and they are often highly aromatic and odoriferous. They exist in the highest perfection in the perfumed effluvia of flowers, some of which, capable of combination with spirituous fluids, are obtainable by distillation, as that of the Lavender and Rose. The bitter secretion of many plants does not seem exactly to accord with any of the foregoing. Some facts would seem to prove it of a resinous nature, but it is often perfectly |