MANURES. 115 
large quantity of food. And he has even taken 
out a patent, which he has sold to Messrs. Mus- 
pratt of Liverpool, for the manufacture of an 
artificial manure adapted to supply every kind of 
plant with the saline and mineral food it requires. 
Thus it is probable that the science of chemistry 
will, in course of time, most materially increase 
the fertility of our fields and meadows, and help 
to supply the poorest of the land with cheap and 
sufficient food. Soon may this time arrive! 
It will be easily understood that in nature,— 
say in the wild wood,—or on the open moor, 
plants will grow best where they can find most 
abundantly this food which they require; and 
as the nature of the food required for different 
plants varies, it is also plain, that whenever plants 
find just that peculiar sort of food in the soil 
which they require, there they will grow most 
abundantly. ‘This, in part explains to us what 
otherwise seems a great mystery, as will be evi- 
dent from the following particulars, in which it 
will be noticed that each plant has, as it were, 
its own district or home. 
There is a pretty and peculiar little plant called, 
from the singularity of its flowers, the man-orchis, 
