The same faculty is exerted to remedy an inconvenient situation. A tree that grows without shelter, resists the wind by the length of its roots; the roots of the gumtree are commonly much shorter in a sheltered place. In the Leeward Islands, the east wind is almost constant, and the trees there extend their roots much farther to that quarter than to any other. A tree, overtopped by neigh boring trees, directs its course to a space that is free, and then mounts up perpendicularly according to its nature. Set a plant in a room that has no light but from a single hole in the wall, instead of rising perpendicularly it directs its course towards the light, passes through the hole, into the open air, and then mounts upwards. The power of remedying a bad situation is remarkable in seed of every kind. The seed contains the plant in minature, with a plumula above that tends upwards, and a radicle, that tends downwards. Put a seed into the ground with its plumula above and its radicle below; as the plant grows, the former ascends and the latter decends, both perpendicularly. Invert the position of the seed, the plumula shoots not downwards, nor the radicle upwards, they twist round the seed, till the former gains tho open air, and the latter presses into the ground. Providence is wonderful in every operation ; were not provision made for tho springing of seeds in every position, agriculture never oould have made any progress.
