27tt HARMONIES OF VEGETATION. 



with the necessities of the other, and the adaptation of 

 peculiarities in plants to different circumstances ; with 

 the same wisdom, she has made vegetables to answer 

 to the wants, the calls, and the comforts of both man 

 and animals. 



HARMONIES OF PLANTS WITH MAN. 



2. There is not a single plant on the face of the 

 earth, hot what has some relation to the wants of man, 

 and serves in some part or other for his food, his clothing, 

 his habitation, his pleasures, his medicine, &c. 



Of these different relations, we shall not pretend to enter very 

 deep ; a few general observations .will be sufficient to show our de- 

 pendancies on the vegetable kingdom. 



3. Our first relation to vegetation, is for the essen- 

 tial support of life, by their rendering the air we have 

 breathed again capable of preserving animal life. 



We have alluded to this subject in a previous part, but here it 

 mnst stand as illustrative of the harmony between the necessities of 

 and vegetable life. 



4. Another highly important relation by which we 

 are obligated to vegetation, is for the principal support 

 of food. For this reason, Nature has caused those arti- 

 cles which are most necessary to be produced in large 

 quantities, and under most circumstances. 



Thus corn, which serves for the general subsistence of the human 

 race, i.j not produced by vegetables of great size, but by mere grasses. 

 If our harvest* were the produce of forests, when these are de- 



