ON VEGETATION. 39 



in the summer, and you have also left it naked in win- 

 ter. 



But if you adopt my plan, your fields in a few years 

 will become as rich, and even richer, than the soil un- 

 der your fences ; and you will need no more manure 

 than is made on your farm by the genial hand of na- 

 ture. It must be here understood that there must be 

 a soil, or my system falls to the ground. If the land 

 is composed of nothing but silex or sand, nature can 

 do nothing in enriching it. But there are none of our 

 farms but have a soil, and by a soil I mean earthy 

 substance, in which more or less vegetable matter is 

 mixed. The next chapter will more fully explain 

 what I mean by vegetable matter. 



PHILOSOPHICAL DlSaUISITION ON VEGETATION. 



A plant or a tree as well as man, is an organized 

 body, endowed by nature with particularly construct- 

 ed parts, which perform certain functions, from which 

 proceed the principle we call life. Mineral bodies, 

 in contradistinction to these, appear to be more the 

 creatures of chance, formed by chymical and mechan- 

 ical attraction. Design is marked on every arrange- 

 ment of the animal or vegetable parts, and that un- 

 known principle of Zz/e, which has puzzled philoso- 

 phers frarn the foundation of the world.. How life 



