seeds have not been scattered, by any known agencies, over intervening
regions, for thousands of miles or more, in order to find lodgment on
these lofty mountain cones; but, conditions being the same, the same
vegetable growths appear. This is nature's method of propagating "vital
units" and diversifying plant-life--geographical conditions everywhere
determining the proper distribution. But if nature is so prolific of vital
resources, in the propagation of plant-life, what need has she of natural
seeds? We anticipate this inquiry only to answer it; for we recognize it
as a legitimate one in this connection. Our answer is that the seeds are
given for the use of man, that he may control and utilize vegetation, and
not have to depend on more or less uncertain conditions. Agricultural
chemistry must be carried to a much higher degree of perfection than it is
likely to reach in the next ten centuries at least, to determine whether
any particular plat of ground has been chemically balanced for the growth
of wheat, to the exclusion of other cereal crops. Besides, the process of
soil-balancing might be altogether too expensive to be indulged in by
judicious husbandry. These chemical conditions admit of too many possible
failures, in balancing even the smallest patch of ground, to justify
experiments in the direction named. Seeds also subserve the important
subsidiary purpose of supplying food for many birds and animals, more or
less useful to man.

But chemistry has its limits as to usefulness in all human laboratories.
As man's wisdom is limited, so is his power over the elementary forces of
nature confined to very narrow boundaries. It is given to him to search
out many inventions, and to pry, thus far and no farther, into the secrets
of nature, or, more properly speaking, into the secrets of God. There is
no doubt that if our chemico-molecular theorists respecting
life-phenomena, could produce, in their laboratories, the exact
inter-uterine plasma, or plasmic conditions, of an animal--any animal, in