For example of the action of a national government, rightly so called, in these matters, I refer the student to the Mariegolas of Venice, translated in Fors Clavigera; and I close this chapter, and this first volume of Proserpina, not without pride, in the words I wrote on this same matter eighteen years ago. "So far as the labourer's immediate profit is concerned, it matters not an iron filing whether I employ him in growing a peach, or in forging a bombshell. But the difference to him is final, whether, when his child is ill, I walk into his cottage, and give it the peach,--or drop the shell down his chimney, and blow his roof off." * * * * * {238} INDEX I. DESCRIPTIVE NOMENCLATURE. Plants in perfect form are said, at page 26, to consist of four principal parts: root, stem, leaf, and flower. (Compare Chapter V., Sec. 2.) The reader may have been surprised at the omission of the fruit from this list. But a plant which has borne fruit is no longer of 'perfect' form. Its flower is dead. And, observe, it is further said, at page 65, (and compare Chapter III., Sec. 2,) that the use of the fruit is to produce the flower: not of the flower to produce the fruit. Therefore, the plant in perfect blossom, is itself perfect. Nevertheless, the formation of the fruit, practically, is included in the flower, and so spoken of in the fifteenth line of the same page. Each of these four main parts of a plant consist normally of a certain series of minor parts, to which it is well to attach easily remembered names. In this section of my index I will not admit the confusion of idea involved by alphabetical arrangement of these names, but will sacrifice facility of reference to clearness of explanation, and taking the four great parts of the plant in {239} succession, I will give the list of the minor and constituent parts, with their names as determined in Proserpina, and reference to the pages where the reasons for such determination are given, endeavouring to supply, at the same time, any deficiencies which I find in the body of the text. I. THE ROOT. PAGE Origin of the word Root 27 The offices of the root are threefold: namely, Tenure, Nourishment, and Animation 27-34 The essential parts of a Root are two: the Limbs and Fibres 33 I. THE LIMB is the gathered mass of fibres, or at least of fibrous substance, which extends itself in search of nourishment 32 II. THE FIBRE is the organ by which the nourishment is received 32