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KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL.

POPULAR SCIENCE.

VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY.-No. IV.
THE REPRODUCTION OF PLANTS.

(Continued from Page 71.)

WHEN WINTER'S KEEN FROSTS lay waste the verdure lately spread out on bank and brae,-when the cold north wind robs the green trees of foliage, and the wood of its humbler inhabitants,—and when death seems to reign with an icy sceptre over all the vegetable kingdom,-we sigh for the green fields and pleasant lanes of summer, and ask, half doubtingly, will next May have as many flowers as last?

In such a mood, we sometimes go so far as to ask ourselves how it is that all this grandeur is, year after year, replenished. To answer such inquiries is the object of the present paper.

It is well known that many plants, and among them not a mean share of our choicest garden beauties, are annual; that is, grow up, from few know where, in the spring; put out leaves and richly-colored flowers, during summer; and then with old autumn grow sallow, and gradually sicken and die,--to have their withered corpses covered in winter's cold winding-sheet. These plants, then, last only for a year; and it consequently follows that they must be produced anew every Spring. Others have longer lives; some growing up one year with leaves in luxuriance, and next year flowering to die with the season. Such are biennial.

Trees and shrubs, however, as well as those plants which leave a living stem,-commonly called a root or bulb,-in the earth, over winter, live for a longer period of years, some even attaining the age of five thousand years. Yet all must die. Stout though the heart, and strong though the limb, they must yield to death's greater power. It is self-evident, then, to the most careless reader, that unless there existed a means of reproducing individuals, the earth would soon be without a floral population. This means is well known to exist in seeds. A few remarks on flowers, and the production and germination of seeds, will take up the bulk of our present communication.

Flowers, the crown of beauty on the forehead of nature, are no exceptions to the Platonian doctrine of "unity or identity, and variety." Diverse in form and color as it is possible for objects to be, they have all one character, they contain (or are the means employed for the formation of) the seed. Take a simple flower, as a rose or the king-cup, and you find on the outside of the flower, five pointed, greenish segments, termed the calyx; and inside of these, in the former example, five pink-colored pieces, generally termed rose

leaves, and, in the latter case, five of a bright
yellow hue. This inner whorl is called the
corolla (the portions of it being the petals),
and, with the calyx, it serves to shelter the
organs within it. The forms assumed by
these organs are at present immaterial; their
existence under any shape whatever, is all
with which we have to do. The separate
segments may be united in a bell, or cup, as
in the Canterbury-bell and primrose, or the
calyx and corolla may be of one color and
inseparable, as in the lily and tulip; or both
may be wanting, as in the pines and wake-

robin.

Internal to these coverings, exist a series of little organs, which, owing to their being conspicuous in such plants, had better be examined first in the rose or king-cup already

referred to. But do not look for them in

the double flower, a number of these very
double flowers,-those lovely monsters. In
in perfect flowers of this kind, not a vestige
organs have been transformed into petals; and
of one is to be seen in its natural shape.
Roses, then, with more than five colored por-
tions, or petals, are monsters! Inside then
of the corolla is noticeable a cluster of yellow
thread-like bodies, bearing on their superior
extremities little thickened masses, which are
boxes containing a powdery matter. These
are the stamens, and vary in number in differ-
ent plants, from one to upwards of a hundred.
Linnæus founded the classes of his arrange-
ment on the number of these organs; a sys-
tem of classification now totally rejected, on

account of its artificial nature.

In the very centre of the flower, other organs exist, resembling the stamens, but without the box at the summit, and either ending These interior portions are in a pointed extremity, or in a thickened and viscous mass. called pistils, and may either be solitary, or in considerable numbers. In the rose we find a whole cluster of them, and in the lily only one.

The orders of the Linnæan system are derived from these internal organs. The stamens, then, and the pistils, or central organs, are the only portions concerned in the production of the seed. The process is, as nearly as may be, this:

The powder in the stamens, after being ripened, falls on the viscous point or summit of the pistil. There, through the action of certain vital laws, it bursts its outer coat, sends a long tube down the stalk of the pistil -called the style-into the thickened cavity at its base, where it joins the young seeds, or ovales, and there, under the influence of vital laws, assists in the perfection of the already partially formed seed. The box, or cavity, at the base of the pistil, is called the ovary; and, in the perfected state, becomes the seedvessel. The fruit or seed-vessel is of various forms; indeed, so Protean in character is this

organ, that it is difficult to recognise the relationship through its various forms. What ever contains the seeds-whether it be a large husk, like the cocoa-nut, with only one in its interior, the dry poppy-head, or the succulent apple with a multitude of seedsthat is the seed-vessel.

Like all other functions of the plant, it is necessary that heat, light, and air should be present, in order to the full development of the seed. On no point in vegetable physiology are scientific men more divided in opinion than on the formation of the seed, from its first appear ance as a little ovale, to its full development as a perfected seed. The seed is the portion of the plant which contains the largest proportion of nitrogen; and, on this account, is the most nutritive as an article of diet. Beans, peas, wheat, and oats, are familiar examples of seeds turned to account in dietetics. It was estimated by Professor Johnston, that out of one thousand parts of each of the following seeds-wheat had thirty-five of nitrogen; oats, twenty-two; peas, forty-two; hay, fifteen; turnips, seventeen; and potatoes, twelve; thus shewing a large balance in favor of the nutritive qualities of seeds over leaves, stems, or roots. The remaining bulk was made up principally by water, starch, sugar, and a few other compounds.

The seed is an epitome of the plant. It consists of a quantity of starchy or albuminous matter, containing a little bud-like body, which, under favorable circumstances, will be developed as a plant, but which, so long as its torpidity can be retained, will preserve its latent powers intact. Well authenticated instances of seeds having been kept for a great number of years are on record. Without instancing the dubious cases of wheat from Egyptian sarcophagi, and other seeds from Roman tombs, we are assured that a bag of seeds of the sensitive plant served the Paris Botanic Garden for sixty years. That the dormant vitality may be retained for a much longer period is not to be doubted. It is not an unusual occurrence on ploughing up a piece of waste land, for the first time, to have it soon after covered with plants hitherto almost unknown in the district, the seeds of which had undoubtedly lain dormant in the soil, beyond the reach of moisture, heat, and air, for centuries.

In order that the seed may grow, a certain amount of moisture in the soil is necessary. Some seeds absorb more than their own weight of water during the change of germination. This is especially the case in beans, peas, and kidney beans. A certain state of temperature is also required, varying in different cases from 60 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Besides these, air is wanted; otherwise certain che mical changes will not take place. For this purpose, seeds should never be sown to a

great depth. From numerous experiments, performed by Petri and others, it has been decided that an inch of depth is sufficient for most seeds. If sown to a greater depth, they will not all germinate, and those which do will be later.

Thus we find that a little seed, the produce of a tiny little blossom, is the parent of the mightiest tree; and that those lovely flowers which delight our senses are not only interesting on account of their bright hues and sweet odors, but because they may be parents to thousands as lovely as themselves.-D.

THE FALL OF THE LEAF.

The summer flowers are gone!
And o'er the melancholy lea
The thistle-down is strown:
The brown leaf drops, drops from the tree,
And on the spated water floats,
That with a sullen spirit flows,
Like lurid dream of troubled thoughts;
While mournfully, all mournfully,
The rain-wind blows.

The summer birds are mute,
And cheerless is the unsung grove;
Silent the rural flute,

Whose Doric stop was touched to love,
By hedgerow-stile, at gloaming grey;
Nor heard the milkmaid's melody,
To fountain, wending blithe as gay;
In wain-shed stand, all pensively,
The hamlet fowls-the cock not crows;
While mournfully, all mournfully,
The rain-wind blows.

Nor heard the pastoral bleat
Of flocks, that whitened many hills;
Vacant the plaided shepherd's seat
Far up above the boulder-leaping rills:
Young Winter o'er the mountains scowls,
His blasts and snow-clouds marshalling;
Beasts of the field, and forest fowls,
Instinctive, see the growing wing

Of storm, dark-coming o'er their social haunts;
Yet fear not they, for Heaven provides
For them-the wild bird never wants;
Want still with luxury resides!
Prophetic o'er the rushy lea
Stalk the dull choughs and crows;
While, mournfully and drearily,
The rain-wind blows.
Browse not the kine and horse;
Rusted the harrow and the plough;
And all day long upon the gorse,
Brown-blighted on the brac's rough brow,
The night-dew, and thin gossamer,
Hang chilly; and the weary sun
Seems tired amid the troubled air,
And long ere his full course be run,
Besouth the Sidlaws wild, sinks down;
Night gathers fast o'er cot and town;
Around, and far as eye can see,
Day has a dreary death-like close;
While mournfully, all mournfully,
THE RAIN WIND BLOWS!

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TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW.

AN EPISODE IN HUMAN LIFE.

Gather the rose-buds while ye may,

Old Time is still a-flving; The self-same flower that blooms to-day, TO-MORROW shall be dying.

WHAT IS LIFE? What, indeed! Its enemy, Death, pursues it with relentless fury. Hand-inhand, they walk together. One rears a blossom, and the other cuts it down. My watchful eye takes notes of this, and my pen will have much to say at a future time. Meantime, let me dot down a scene I shall never forget.

In my daily walks into the country, I was accustomed to pass a certain cottage. It was no cottage ornée. It was no cottage of romance. It had nothing particularly picturesque about it. It had its little garden, and its vine spreading over its front; but beyond these it possessed no feature likely to fix it in the mind of a poet, or a novel writer, and which might induce him to people it with beings of his own fancy. In fact, it appeared to be inhabited by persons as little extraordinary as itself. A good man of the house it might possess but he was never visible. The only inmates I ever saw were a young woman, and another female in the wane of life, no doubt the mother.

The damsel was a comely, fresh, mild-looking cottage girl enough; always seated in one spot, near the window, intent on her needle. The old home was as regularly busied, to and fro, in household affairs. She appeared one of those good housewives who never dream of rest, except in sleep. The cottage stood so near the road, that the fire at the farther end of the room showed you, without being rudely inquisitive, the whole interior, in the single moment of passing. A clean hearth and a cheerful fire, shining upon homely, but neat and orderly furniture, spoke of comfort; but whether the dame enjoyed, or merely diffused that comfort, was a problem.

One

I passed the house many successive days. It was always alike-the fire shining brightly and peacefully-the girl seated at her post by the window-the housewife going to and fro, catering and contriving, dusting and managing. morning, as I went by, there was a change. The dame was seated near her daughter; her arms laid upon the table, and her head reclining upon I was sure that it was sickness which had compelled her to that attitude of reposenothing less could have done it. I felt that I knew exactly the poor woman's feelings. Sho had felt a weariness stealing upon her; she had wondered at it, and struggled against it, and borne up, hoping it would pass by, till, loth as she was to yield, it had forced submission.

her arms.

The next day, when I passed, the room appeared as usual; the fire burning, the girl at her needle. But her mother was not to be seen; and glancing my eye upwards, I perceived the blind close-drawn in the window above. It is so, I said to myself: disease is in its progress. Perhaps it occasions no gloomy fears of consequences, no extreme concern; and yet who knows how it may end? It is this that begins these changes, that draws out the central bolt which holds together families

which steals away our fireside faces, and lays waste our dearest affections.

same.

I passed by, day after day. The scene was the The fire was burning, the hearth beaming clean and cheerful. But the mother was not to be seen. The blind was still drawn above. At length I missed the girl, and in her place appeared another woman, bearing considerable resemblance to the mother, but of a quieter habit. It was easy to interpret this change. Disease had assumed an alarming aspect; the daughter was occupied in intense watching, and caring for the suffering mother, and the good woman's sister had been summoned to her bed-side-perhaps from a distant spot, and perhaps from her family cares, which no less important an event could have induced her to elude.

Thus appearances continued some days. There was a silence around the house, and an air of neglect within it. One morning I beheld the blind drawn in the room below, and the window thrown open above. The scene was over; the mother was removed from her family; and one of those great alterations effeeted in human life, which commence with so little observation but which leave behind them such lasting effects.

A PARTING SONG.

BY ELIZA COOK.

Q.

COME, let us part with lightsome heart,
Nor breathe one chiding sigh,
To think that wings of rainbow plume
So soon should learn to fly.
We scarcely like the chimes to strike
That tell of Pleasure's flight,
But Friendship's chain, when severed thus,
Is sure to re-unite.

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Then why not let us merry be,

Though this song be the last,
Believing other hours will come
As bright as those just past?

The wild-bird's song is loud and long;
But the sweetest and the best,
Is whistled as he leaves the bough
To seek his lonely nest.

The sun's rich beam shines through the day,
But flashes deeper still

While darting forth his farewell ray
Behind the western hill.

Then why not we as merry be,

In this our parting strain?
For, like the bird and sun, we'll come
With joy and warmth again.

The moments fled, like violets dead,
Shall never lose their power;

For grateful perfume ever marks
The memory's withered flower.
The sailor's lay, in peaceful bay,

With gladsome mirth rings out;
But when the heavy anchor's weighed,
He gives as blithe a shout.
Then why not we as merry be,

In this our parting strain,
And trust, as gallant sailors do,

TO MAKE THE PORT AGAIN?

THE GOLDEN RULES OF LIFE.

If thou well observe The rule of " not too much," by Temperance taught, In what thou eat'st and drink'st, seeking from thence Due nourishment, not gluttonous delight, Till many years over thy head return,--Then may'st thou live, till, like ripe fruit, thou drop Into thy mother's lap; or be with ease Gather'd, not harshly pluck'd, in death mature.

MILTON.

EXCESS IN ANY SHAPE is bad, but in eating and drinking it is dangerous. It exhausts the body, and destroys the soul. We would speak here more particularly of drinking, a practice even yet far too prevalent in this country.

*

Of all the illusions by which man has allowed himself to be led astray from the path of common sense, there is none more absurd in its nature and mournful in its effects (says a popular writer), than that which induces him to believe that ardent spirits are conducive either to health or happiness. Engendering an appetite which grows with what it feeds on, they acquire by degrees an unbounded dominion over the individual, whom they at last reduce to a melancholy state of physical imbecility and moral degradation. Peevishness takes the place of equanimity; and he who commenced the habit of drinking, that, like "a good fellow," he might minister to the happiness of others, ends by destroying

his own.

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Living fast" is a metaphorical phrase which, more accurately than is generally imagined, expresses a literal fact! Whatever hurries the action of the corporeal functions, must tend to abridge the period of their probable duration. As the wheel of a carriage performs a certain number of rotations before it arrives at the destined goal, so to the arteries of the human frame we may conceive that there is allotted only a certain number of pulsations before their vital energy is entirely exhausted. Extraordinary longevity has seldom been know to occur, except in persons of a remarkably tranquil and slowpaced circulation.

is no process by which we can distil life, so as to separate from it all foul and heterogeneous matter, and leave nothing behind but drops of pure defecated happiness. If there were, we should scarcely blame the vicious extravagance of the voluptuary, who, provided that his sun shine brilliantly, while above his head, cares not though that sun should set at an earlier hour.

It is seldom that debauchery breaks at once the thread of vitality. There occurs, for the most part, a wearisome and painful interval between the first loss of a capacity for enjoying life and the period of its ultimate and entire extinction. This circumstance, it is of those persons who, with a prodigality to be presumed, is out of the consideration more extravagant than that of Cleopatra, dissolve the pearl of health in the goblet of intemperance. The slope towards the grave these victims of indiscretion find to be no easy descent. The scene is darkened long before the curtain falls, and discloses the horrors of an hereafter. Having exhausted prematurely all that is pure and delicious in the cup of life, they are obliged to swallow afterwards the bitter dregs. Death is the last, but not the worst result of intemperance. There is more to follow!

Punishment, in some instances, treads

almost instantly upon the heels of transgression; at others, with a more tardy, but equally certain step, it follows the commission of moral irregularity. During the course of a long-protracted career of excess, the malignant power of alcohol, slow and insidious in its operation, is gnawing incessantly at the root; and often without spoiling the bloom, or seeming to impair the vigor of the frame, is clandestinely hastening the period of its destruction. There is no imprudence, with regard to health, that does not tell; and those are not unfrequently found to suffer in the event most essentially, who do not appear to suffer immediately from every individual act of indiscretion. The work of decay is, in such instances, constantly going on, although it never loudly indicates its advance, by any forcible impression upon the senses.

If intemperance curtailed merely the number of our days, we should have but little reason to find fault with its effects. The A feeble constitution is, in general, more From yielding idea of a short life and a merry one is plau- flexible than a vigorous one. sible enough if it could be realised. But more readily, it is not so soon broken by the A disorder is for unfortunately, what shortens existence is cal-assaults of indiscretion. culated also to make it melancholy. There

*The advent of our mortal enemy, Cholera, whose gaunt strides amongst us have told fearfully of his great power-induce us once more to raise a warning voice against an indulgence in ardent spirits, We know many who persist in their use, despite all remonstrance. Let them beware, ere it be too late. Taken me licinally, spirits have their good use; but indulged in as a "pleasure," they become a curse.

the most part violent in proportion to the stamina of the subject which it attacks. Strong men have energetic diseases. The puny valetudinarian seems to suffer less injury from indisposition, in consequence of being more familiar with its effects. lingering and scarcely more than semi-vital existence is often protracted beyond that of the more active, vivacious, and robust.

His

But it ought to be in the knowledge of the debauchee that each attack of casual, or return

KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL.

of periodical, distemper, deducts something from the strength and structure of his frame. Some leaves fall from the tree of life every time that its trunk is shaken. It may thus be disrobed of its beauty, and made to betray the dreary nakedness of a far advanced autumn, long before, in the regular course of nature, that season could even have commenced. The distinction, though incalculably important, is not sufficiently recognised, between stimulation and nutrition; between repairing the expenditure of the fuel by a supply of substantial matter, and urging unseasonably, or to an inordinate degree, the Violence of the heat and the brilliancy of the flame.

The strongest liquors are the most weakening. In proportion to the power which the draught itself possesses, is that which it ultimately deducts from the person into whose stomach it is habitually received. In a state of ordinary health, and in many cases of disease, a generous diet may be safely and even advantageously recommended. But in diet, the generous ought to be distinguished from the stimulating. This latter is almost exclusively, but, on account of its evil operations upon the frame, very improperly, called good living. The indigent wretch whose scanty fare is scarcely sufficient to supply the materials of existence, and the no less wretched debauchee, whose luxurious indulgence daily accelerates the period of its destruction, may both be said to live hard. Hilarity is not health; more especially when it has been aroused by artificial means. The fire of intemperance often illuminates, at the very moment that it is consuming its victim. It is not until after the blaze of an electric corruscation that its depredations are exposed.

Stimuli sometimes produce a kind of artificial genius as well as vivacity. They lift a man's intellectual faculties, as well as his feelings of enjoyment, above their ordinary level; and if, by the same means, they could be kept for any length of time in that state of exaltation, it might constitute something like a specious apology for having had recourse to their assistance. Unfortunately, however, the excitement of the system can in no instance be urged above its accustomed and natural pitch, without this being succeeded by a correspondent degree of depression. Like the fabulous stone of Sisyphus, it invariably begins to fall as soon as it has reached the summit; and the rapidity of its subsequent descent is almost invariably in proportion to the degree of its previous elevation. Genius, in this manner forcibly raised, may be compared to those fireworks which after having made a brilliant figure in the sky for a short time, fall to the ground, and expose a miserable fragment as the only relic of their preceding splendor.

In like man

It is no uncommon thing in this dissipated metropolis for a woman of gaiety and fashion, previous to the reception of a party, to light up, by artificial means, her mind as well her This is done in order that both may 29 But rooms. be "shown off to the best advantange.' the mental lustre which is thus kindled goes out even sooner than that of the lamps; and the mistress of the entertainment often finds herself deserted by her spirits, long before she is deserted by her guests. ner, a man who is meditating a composition for the public is often tempted to rouse the torpor or to spur the inactivity of his faculties by some temporary incentive. Gay, in one of his letters, observes that "he must be a bold man who ventures to write without But, in general, it may the help of wine." be remarked that the cordials which an author on this account may be induced to take, are more likely to make himself than his readers satisfied with his productions. The good things which a person under the influence of fictitious exhilaration may be stimulated to say, are often, in their effects, the very worst things than he could possibly have uttered. From a want of sufficient steadiness or discretion, sparks sometimes fall from the torch of genius by which it is converted into a firebrand of mischief.

We are apt to complain of the heaviness and wearisomeness of volumes, where the But the apparent pains taken by the writer have not been sufficiently concealed.

result of excessive care is much to be preferred to the heedless effusion of a mind over which it is too obvious that the judgment has in a great measure suspended its control.

It is far better that a work should smell of the lamp than of the cask.

THE LONELY BIRD.

Brown Autumn is flying,

Stern Winter is nigh,
Sweet flow'rs are dying,
Half-withered they lie.
The warblers have left us,

For bright summer skies;
Cold winds have bereft us

Of Philomel's sighs.
Far wanders the swallow;
Alas! only one,
In our wooded hollow
Still lingers alone!
She tarries, a mourner,

Her offspring are gone;
Now sadder, forlorner,—
She tarries alone!
Ye tempests, pass o'er her,
Disturb not her rest,
Till sweet-smiling FLORA

Breathes life on her nest!

MOTLEY.

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