On the Nourishment produced to the Vlant ly its Leaves. 1 1 



with hairs of innumerable sorts ; both nearly a temporary ex- 

 pedient. 



Thus far Nature assists ; but I have in vain sought for some 

 cure, some indication of change, to remedy to a plant the altera- 

 tion of soil. I cannot find that she adopts anv plan to enable 

 a sand plant to endure a clay, or a chalk plant to support a 

 sandv soil. These are therefore far more.fatal transformations 

 to vegetable life, than any humidity or dryness can produce. 

 I have repeatedly traced 'isorders (which appeared to me to 

 arise entirely from that source) that afterwards tainted the very 

 means of life m a plant. But how boiuitiful has Nature been 

 to us in thi» respect ! leaving however to ouv own industry the 

 care of culling each different species, and adapting it to the 

 right soil. There is scarcely a plant necessary to the food of 

 man or beast, that has not so great a variety in its species, as to 

 enable the industrious grower to choose that which best suits his 

 own ground. Corn of every kind, vetches, clovers, grasses, have 

 all their different sorts properly fitting the soil from which they 

 first came, and in which they originally and sjjontaneously grew. 

 Tims there is a clay clover, and a sand dover, a chalk clover, 

 one suited to a poor land, and one that grows well in rich land 

 only ; one that will not support moisture, and one that grows 

 only in wet land ; one that prefers hills, and one that can only 

 do well in valleys ; one that likes the sun, and one that avoids 

 it. Nature has been equally bountiful in most 6ther plants pe- 

 culiarly adapted to agriculture ; and in wheats also, of the many 

 I have tried in different soils, I have found them remarkably 

 well answering this plan, and regularly attaching themselves to 

 that sort of ground from wliich each came, and especially he- 

 longed : and, in wheats it is of the utmost conseciuence to dis- 

 cover those which suit the soil, and, having found two or three, 

 change only from one to the other when the alteration of seed 

 becomes necessary. Custom is of astonishing use in plants; and 

 though the ground, for an excellent reason, should not continue 

 too Jong receiving one plant, yet it always grows better for be- 

 ing accustomed to the soil. What is meant l)y growing sick of 

 the ground, is, that it exhausts after a time that peculiar juice 

 which is necessary to the plant ; but give it a season or two 

 cessation, and it will always grow better for being used to its 

 situation, 



I have been showing how much plants, especially leaves, gain 

 by the atmosphtre. Let me now revert to the use it is of to 

 the ground itself, which it may tndy be said to manure, and, be- 

 ing done by nature, has a much greater effect than any dressing 

 we can bestow on it. Much has been said lately against the ex- 

 travagance and bad husbandry oif allows: suiely this is not just. 



The 



