that all things of beauty and golden-fruited promise shall be his. In the language of her greatest and most profoundly philosophical poet,-- "Nature never lends The smallest scruple of her excellence, But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines Herself the glory of a creditor-- _Both thanks and use_." Those who think, therefore, to make nature a debtor, by reversing her laws of propagation and making her dependent on what she bestows in use, will never find out the smallest scruple of her excellence, nor add to her glory as a creditor. All things are framed in her prodigality, and the seeds of plants and trees are no exception to the quality of her bestowals. We may reason, syllogize, speculate as we will, the first plant and the first tree were not nature's thankless bastards, but her legitimate and loving offspring. She engendered them in her own fruitful breast, and her "copy is eterne." Chapter IV. The Distribution and Vitality of Seeds. Few questions have attracted more attention among vegetable physiologists, of late years, than the dispersion and migration of seeds from place to place in the earth, and it is safe to say that none has been more unsatisfactorily answered. In the case of quite a number of plants and trees, special contrivances would seem to have been provided by nature for insuring their dispersion, as well as migration. With a small number of plants, for instance, the seeds are discharged for short distances by the explosive force of their seed-vessels, when properly matured; an equally small number have certain membranous contrivances, called "wings," by which they may be borne still greater distances; others, again, are provided with light feathery tufts, to which the seed is attached, and these may be carried by the winds several miles before finding a lodgment in the soil; while many others are inclosed in prickly and barb-pointed coverings by which they attach themselves to animals, and even birds, and may be transported to almost any distance. But with the great majority of plants and trees, as the seeds fall so they lie, and must continue to lie until they either germinate or perish, or are accidentally dispersed or scattered by some extrinsic agency. The anxiety of speculative botanists to account for the recognized alternations of forest and other growths, have led to the different theories of transportation we have named; and when these theories have been supplemented by the alleged wonderful vitality of seeds, in the cunning recesses in which nature manages to conceal them, they imagine the whole difficulty solved, when, in point of fact, it remains wholly unsolved.