SECT.  XII.  Of Plants.

All that the earth produces being corrupted, returns into her bosom, and becomes the source of a new production.  Thus she resumes all she has given in order to give it again.  Thus the corruption of plants, and the excrements of the animals she feeds, feed her, and improve her fertility.  Thus, the more she gives the more she resumes; and she is never exhausted, provided they who cultivate her restore to her what she has given.  Everything comes from her bosom, everything returns to it, and nothing is lost in it.  Nay, all seeds multiply there.  If, for instance, you trust the earth with some grains of corn, as they corrupt they germinate and spring; and that teeming parent restores with usury more ears than she had received grains.  Dig into her entrails, you will find in them stone and marble for the most magnificent buildings.  But who is it that has laid up so many treasures in her bosom, upon condition that they should continually produce themselves anew?  Behold how many precious and useful metals; how many minerals designed for the conveniency of man!

Admire the plants that spring from the earth: they yield food for the healthy, and remedies for the sick.  Their species and virtues are innumerable.  They deck the earth, yield verdure, fragrant flowers, and delicious fruits.  Do you see those vast forests that seem as old as the world?  Those trees sink into the earth by their roots, as deep as their branches shoot up to the sky.  Their roots defend them against the winds, and fetch up, as it were by subterranean pipes, all the juices destined to feed the trunk.  The trunk itself is covered with a tough bark that shelters the tender wood from the injuries of the air.  The branches distribute by several pipes the sap which the roots had gathered up in the trunk.  In summer the boughs protect us with their shadow against the scorching rays of the sun.  In winter, they feed the fire that preserves in us natural heat.  Nor is burning the only use wood is fit for; it is a soft though solid and durable matter, to which the hand of man gives, with ease, all the forms he pleases for the greatest works of architecture and navigation.  Moreover, fruit trees by bending their boughs towards the earth seem to offer their crop to man.  The trees and plants, by letting their fruit or seed drop down, provide for a numerous posterity about them.  The tenderest plant, the least of herbs and pulse are, in little, in a small seed, all that is displayed in the highest plants and largest tree.  Earth that never changes produces all those alterations in her bosom.