there is anything wonderful in all this. How blind man is to the things around him!

After a seed has been in the ground a little while it swells, because the moisture of the earth gets into it. The covering of the seed breaks, and out comes a little root, which pushes down into the ground. Soon after there comes out of the seed a little stalk, which shoots upward. No matter how the seed lies in the ground, the roots will descend even if they come out of the upper end of the seed, and the stalk will go up though it has to come out of the lower end. Now, what makes the root go down and the stalk go up we do not know. "Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all."

Many seeds, such as those of the peach-tree and the walnut, have thick, hard coverings round them. Such seeds, by being soaked in the ground, gradually swell and burst open, so that the root and the stalk may spring and grow.

A dry seed looks as if it were dead; but there is life in its quiet prison-house. Seeds many hundred years old have been planted, and have been known to grow. A remarkable anecdote of the vitality1 of seeds is related. In the folds of cloth which the ancient Egyptians used to wrap round the bodies of their dead after embalming them, a few grains of wheat were found by a traveller. The age of the mummy-as such an embalmed body is called-was probably at least from two to three thousand years. The gentleman took care of the seeds and planted them. To his amazement the seeds proved to be alive,

1 Vitality-from the Latin, vita, life.'

and in a short time strong, healthy plants of Egyptian corn made their appearance above the soil. These in due time ripened, and bore fruit abundantly. The seeds were preserved, and afterwards sown again; and these also produced healthy corn. Ultimately enough was obtained to make the seeds an article of sale; and the wheat thus produced became known as mummy wheat."

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What a wonderful subject for thought is this! A sleep of two thousand years! And how remarkably does it illustrate the wisdom and providence of God, who has endowed seeds with this length of life to guard against their ever becoming lost to man.

Seeds do not all rest where they fall. They are scattered in various ways. Some are carried away by water, and settle far from the place where they grew. But the wind is the great scatterer of seeds; and some seeds are so small, and others are so constructed, that the wind can blow them about very easily. The seed of the dandelion is provided with light feathery wings, by which it is easily wafted away. If the seed had not this sort of balloon to fly with, it would fall straight to the ground; but with this it often travels over mountains and across rivers to a great distance.

11.-LEAVES.

LEAVES are so common that we do not observe how beautiful they are. But let us take any common leaf into our hand and examine it,-say the leaf of the strawberry-plant. See how prettily it is notched. Hold it up to the light, and see the lines that run from the middle line to the

edge. Then observe how delicate and beautiful is the fine net-work between these lines. Notice also the back of the leaf, and you will see ribs that spread out from the main rib in the middle to the edge. These form the frame of the leaf, just as timbers are the frame of a house. They are to the leaf what whalebones are to an umbrella. They give strength to it, and without it the leaf would look faded, and hang down. These ribs are very large in broadspreading leaves, as in those of the vine and the rhubarbplant; while in leaves that are stiff and firm, like the holly and the laurel, the ribs are very small.

Some leaves are of a very singular shape, and one of the most remarkable is that of the pitcher-plant, a native of China. At the end of the leaf, the main rib extends like a tendril, and to this is attached a little pitcher with a lid on the top. This lid, though it can be raised, is generally shut down. The rain therefore cannot get in, and yet the pitcher is always full of water! Now, how do you suppose this water gets there? It is part of the sap of the plant, and is poured from thousands of little mouths on the inside into the pitcher, which is thus kept filled with water. This plant is quite common in the island of Ceylon, where it is called the monkey-cup, because the monkeys sometimes open the lid and drink the water. Men, too, sometimes drink from these little pitchers, when there is no spring of water at hand where they can quench their thirst.

The leaf of the Venus fly-trap,-a plant which is a native of Canada,-is a real trap for flies and other insects. When undisturbed, it looks as if no danger were there; but let an insect alight on the leaf, and he is made a prisoner at once! The two parts of the leaf close, and

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the points on the edges are locked together, so as to furnish bars to the prison.

Most leaves are thin, but some are very thick, as in the case of the India-rubber-tree. The plants called cactuses have thick fleshy leaves, which make them look very awkward; but the flowers are very beautiful. It is a singular fact, that if one of the leaves be broken off and put into the ground, it will take root and grow.

THE SAP IN LEAVES.

Why does a leaf fade when it is plucked from a tree? It is because the sap can no longer get to it; just as no water can get into a house when the water-pipe is cut off. When the leaf is on the tree, the sap flows to all parts of it through the ribs of the leaf; the ribs, like the stem, having innumerable little pipes in them for the sap to run in. But when a leaf is plucked, the watery part of the sap escapes into the air through innumerable little holes or pores on the under surface of the leaf, so small that they cannot be seen without the aid of a powerful microscope. When the ribs and the fine net-work between them have thus lost their supply of sap, the leaf is said to be faded.

The water in the leaf of the pitcher-plant, as already stated, comes from the pores on the inside. If, instead of having a pitcher shape, the leaf were laid open and spread out like a common leaf, the water would all pass away into the air; but the little pitcher, with its curious lid, prevents the moisture from escaping, and is soon quite full. This shows how much water escapes from leaves into the air. If any common leaf could be changed into a pitcher or cup shape, with a lid on it, it would soon

become filled with water, flowing into it from the pores of the leaf.

Leaves may be said to be continually breathing moisture into the air. This moisture helps to make the air soft, and the fragrance of the flowers makes it balmy. Each leaf, it is true, yields but little water, and so does but little good in this way; but there are so many leaves that a large quantity of moisture is continually escaping from them into the air. Those who desire to do good in the world may learn a lesson from the leaves. A large amount of good may be done when each does a little. Let each do all the good he can; and though it may not be noticed by others, God sees it all, and remembers it.

12. THE USE OF LEAVES.

THE chief use of leaves is to keep plants alive, and to make them grow. If you were to strip off the leaves of a plant as fast as they came out, you would soon kill it. Leaves serve both for digesting food to the plant and for breathing air; the upper surface of the leaf being, as it were, the stomach of the plant, and the under surface the lung.

No part of the wood of a tree comes from the ground. It all comes from the air. How strange to think that all the vast forests of the earth have been obtained from the air, that the little particles which unite to form our battle-ships (Old England's wooden walls),-the wood of our houses, the chairs on which we rest,-the solid floor on which we tread,--were once floating about in the form of air! Yet so it is; the sap of the tree is spread out in