Growling

“ They may wait to learn the names of the trees until the leaves come. By-and-by, as the spring advances, behold a general stiffening and look of life in the still bare branches; life stirs in the beautiful mystery of the leaf-buds, a nest of delicate baby leaves lying in downy warmth within many waterproof wrappings; oak and elm, beech and birch, each has its own way of folding and packing its leaflets; observe the 'ruby budded lime' and the ash, with its pretty stag's foot of a bud, not green but black--
"More black than ash-buds in the front of March." ”

“ Every spring hundreds and thousands of baby plants make their way out of the seed shell into the world, just as you saw the baby bean plant do, sending out first its little stem, which pointed downward into the earth and started a root. And every spring there are hundreds of thousands of men and women, and boys and girls, who go through the woods and fields, and across the parks and along the streets, as though they were blind, taking no notice of the wonders all about them. ”

“ Full spring came and the vegetation burst into leaf and bud and bloom, quickly, for its growth instincts knew in their mindless way how short was the time to grow and reproduce before the brown death of summer came. ”

“ The soft air is full of myriads of little voices; small rustling things disturb the grass; the soft sod yields beneath my step, and pungent odors float down the wind. Life, imperious life is singing in the night its message of growth. Grow and multiply, grow, grow for to-morrow the harvest. ”

“ More than that—because a flower is of such slow growth. If one could see a seed sprouting, a stalk rising, a bud forming, bursting, and expanding all in five minutes, the wonder of the thing would bring one on one’s knees. The world is just the same. ”

“ To grow like a tree, slowly and placidly, with long sensitive roots penetrating the soil, a thousand branches wrestling with the storm, and leaves without number drinking the sun and the dew through myriad pores, must have its deep delights. ”

“ Flowers, though they were well enough in their proper places,—the front garden or the grass,—were usually a nuisance that crept through the crops and choked their growth, until descended upon and tediously jerked up, one after another, by the roots. And a man who could give his entire time not only to the collection of nosegays but to the gathering of weeds, could not have the esteem of the big brothers. ”

“ We know that each spring, as the sap rises in your veins, you put forth afresh lush green sprouts symmetrically from the buds at your growing points; and that if these sprouts were permitted to develop equally and evenly in every direction, you would have grown from the first as normally and formally as a spruce-fir or a puzzle-monkey. But not for us are such joys. We must grow as the tempests and the hail-storms permit us. Soon after you have begun each year to put forth your tender green shoots comes a frost—a nipping frost—whirled along on the wide wings of some angry sou’wester. ”

“ I cried, as noon came, “the orchard may rest for the present! Now for the next thing!”
Have you ever watched a small boy picking berries? He never picks a bush clean, but rushes after this or that big cluster of fruit which strikes his eye, covering half an acre of ground while you, perhaps, are stripping a single clump of bushes. And he is usually amazed when your pail fills quicker than his. Alas! I fear I was much like that small boy during my first season on the farm, or at any rate during the first month or two. ”

“ The tiny seed begins to grow; it pushes through the earth, and after years of growth it is a mighty tree and birds rest in its leafy bowers and men find refuge 'neath its sheltering boughs from sun and storm. ”

“ Another plants the seed and sees the harvest spring—that day Comes one whose face he does not know, and takes a third away.
A little child, whose plaintive mouth has never learned to laugh, Sits stringing beads—to her appears the man who claims his half. ”

“ You can find these monster babies on every lawn, in every garden and park and farm, on the grass, on small plants and big trees; buried in soft fruits and hard grains, and in tunnels they have bored in roots and stems and tree trunks. ”

“ And bare boughs are instructive, too, as well as beautiful. They suggest to one the endless vicissitudes and cataclysms in the history of growth; they show us how the knotted trunk acquires its final form, and by what course of evolution branch added to branch builds up at last the whole noble shape of the buttressed beech or the spreading horse-chestnut. ”

“ While he, with infinite labor, prepares the ground and sows his seed with all care, praying that drouth may not wither nor floods drown it, and that frosts may not cut down the tender plants, the winds of heaven and the fowls of the air scatter broadcast the seeds of the noxious weeds, or these lie dormant in the ground awaiting opportunity. They germinate in sterile places, fence corners and nooks of the wayside, and flourish alike in scorching sunshine and in sodden soil. ”

“ Should the Grouse, however, run into a thicket, or even over a place where many dried leaves lie on the ground, it suddenly stops, squats, and remains close until the danger is over, or until it is forced by a dog or the sportsman himself to rise against its wish. ”

“ WAITING TO GROW Little white snowdrop just waking up,
Violet, daisy, and sweet buttercup,
Think of the flowers that are under the snow,
Waiting to grow!
And think what a number of queer little seeds,
Of flowers and mosses, of ferns and of weeds,
Are under the leaves and under the snow,
Waiting to grow!
Think of the roots getting ready to sprout,
Reaching their slender brown fingers about,
Under the ice and the leaves and the snow,
Waiting to grow!
No seed is so small, or hidden so well,
That God cannot find it ”

“ The grove no longer desired the screen of leaves to hide it from the eyes of man, to cover up the monsters of soft rank vegetation that throve and bloated until they burst with the unclean rottenness of excess. ”

“ For let this be borne in mind, whatever ugly quality disfigures the child, he is but as a garden overgrown with weeds, the more prolific the weeds, the more fertile the soil; he has within him every possibility of beauty of life and character. ”

“ As the Grouse grows older, the parent birds relax their anxiety for the brood when disturbed, and, although they lie very close, the hen bird no longer flutters along the ground endeavouring to distract attention. ”

“ There is a nice little family of grouse, consisting of papa, mamma, and four children, all taking a pleasant walk among the heath and fern. At the same time the old birds are searching for the wild berries, the buds of the heath, and the seeds which form their principal food. Look how eager the young ones are to have their share of some nice berries, which mamma grouse has just found! ”

“ ANATOMICAL STRUCTURE AND GROWTH.
394. Growth is the increase of a living thing in size and substance. It appears so natural that plants and animals should grow, that one rarely thinks of it as requiring explanation. It seems enough to say that a thing is so because it grew so. Growth from the seed, the germination and development of an embryo into a plantlet, and at length into a mature plant (as illustrated in Sections II. and III.) , can be followed by ordinary observation. ”

“ Now you know how the coat came by its scar, for the scar was the spot which showed where the bean had been broken from the pod.
"What do you mean by growing?" said the other voice, which came from a large red stone.
"Why," said the bean, "don't you know what growing means? I thought every thing knew how to grow. You see, when I grow, my root goes down into the soil to get moisture, and my stem goes up into the light to find heat. Heat and moisture are my food and drink. ”

“ Any boy, in his wanderings over marsh or mountain, through woods or our quiet village street, during even the coldest winter months, could not fail to see some beautiful sprays of seed-pods crowning many of our most common weeds, which if crystallized, would make a very pretty and acceptable present to mother for the corner bracket, or the shelf which seemed just a little bare before. ”

“ Once the perfection of blooming richness and taste,—the beds without a weed, the gravel trimly raked and shining, bright channels of limpid water running amid the flowers, and beautiful birds of gay plumage caged beneath the shady shrubs,—now all was overrun with rank grass and tall weeds ”

“ It will have a mother young and vigorous, or none; an old or weak or exhausted soil cannot produce it. It will endure no roof of shade, basking only in the eye of the fatherly sun, and demanding the whole sky for the walls of its nursery. ”

“ But there will be more morning-glories, for the vine has stored some of its life in the seeds, and they will not fade and cease to work. All that is left of the life of the vine is in the seeds. All the morning-glories that will grow and delight us with their bright flowers next summer lie packed away in the dark seeds. ”

“ But when you have put the young reprobate through all these exercises, you have only succeeded in making gravel walks in a wilderness; and though from those trim avenues you may scatter good seed enough, it perishes on the soil, or withers in a tangle of weeds. After all our labour and seed-scattering, we still complain that it is so hard to reach the heart. ”

“ It is a sort of mental growth with them; at every instant a bud shoots forth, and on this another and still another; each producing, increasing, blooming of itself, so that after a few moments we find first a green plant crop up, then a thicket, then a forest. ”

“ I hear the children calling it the grove still. The young trees are growing up fast round them, not elms, many of them but wild cherry-trees, and poplars, and a few spruces but the poor old elms seem to be all the more alone because of the second growth. ”

“ By Pinching.—There are other means of producing the desired effects of dwarfing and early fruiting, which should be mentioned. These consist in systematic efforts to curtail the development of the wood-growth, by judicious pinching, of the tips or points of the branches, and to prevent the rambling of the roots by root-pruning. These it is designed now to examine. Pinching is practiced in the green-house with the happiest effects, and it results in the production of the most perfect form of the plants, and most abundant display of flowers. ”

“ When spring has come you can see him dart from his nest in the hollow of the tree and make a journey a minute to the neighbouring field, returning each time with a chafer-grub or a wire-worm or some other succulent, but pestiferous morsel for the young and clamorous family at home. ”

“ Young shoots spring up here and there, in a few years grow into bushes, and in a few more years are trees; and the dense masses of rush which seemed to choke their growth, yielding their position of importance, slowly disappear. ”

“ Who complains when their beauty, for the present, is destroyed, the trees cut back and pruned till they stand bare and unsightly? But the buds and grafts which have been introduced will soon start into new life, the branches begin to shoot upward, and the sweet, pure blossoms and golden fruit will clothe the tree, which a grumbler would have thought wholly destroyed, with new beauty. ”

“ A species, for example, is either shrubby or tree-like. Yet under varying environment, size of plant and of the parts of the plant, are probably the first to change. Habit of growth is nearly as important as size and varies but little under changing conditions. A species or variety may be upright, spreading, drooping or round-topped in growth; head open or dense; the tree rapid or slow-growing. ”

“ So widely has the sower scattered the seed, so strong is the germinative force that bids it bud and blossom. But, alas, for the stony ground, and the birds and the tares! For one who attains his full stature, how many are stunted and deformed. ”

“ Now she is ready to sacrifice the rest of her body to be tumbled about, broken in pieces, and scattered in every direction for the good of her precious progeny, most of whom will find new places, where they will stand a chance the next summer to grow into plants. ”

“ When the grasses are in flower there is not much difficulty in doing this, but the habit of growth—the characters of the leaves and roots, and of the stolons of the perennial species—should also be noticed carefully, as during the greater part of the year these alone can be depended upon. ”

“ But before it can grow it must be put into a little nest in the ground. But the poor plant is so helpless that she is unable to prepare this nest herself, so all she can do is to scatter her seed babies out on the ground and hope some one will take pity on them and make a nice nest for them. ”

“ On enquiry he found the reason to be that when a child is born, or is yet young, its parent chooses a shrub, which growing as the child grows, will, during the child’s absence, or even in after years, indicate by its appearance whether the human counterpart be ill or well, alive or dead. ”

“ It is usual not to place all these suckers at once in the ground upon the spot which they are finally to occupy, but first to entrust them to the nursery, and to allow them to grow in seed-plots, after which they are finally transplanted. ”

“ The sap stirs early in the legs of a country boy, and shows itself in uneasiness in the toes, which get tired of boots, and want to come out and touch the soil just as soon as the sun has warmed it a little. ”