USES OF VITALITY. 41 



the conditions, which are necessary to keep up the continu- 

 ance and activity of this principle. But in the vegetable king- 

 dom, nature has not given to the plant the power of making 

 known its wants, but has left it to the farmer to learn what 

 they are, and, if he wishes the seed or the plant to develope 

 itself in the most perfect and useful manner, he must supply 

 them with all those conditions, which their peculiar constitu- 

 tion requires. He must become acquainted not only with their 

 natural enemies, but with their particular friends, and defend 

 them from the attacks of the former, by surrounding them 

 with the strong protection of the latter. 



Unskilful farming, like quackery in medicine, has but one 

 specific for every species of disease. It is a subject of deep 

 regret, that imicli of the practice of medicine, and all kinds 

 of quackery, are but a series of experiments upon the capa- 

 bilities of the vitcd pmvcr ; and, although our Creator, as if 

 foreseeing the trial to which it would be subjected, has given 

 it a wonderful degree of elasticity and accommodation to cir- 

 cumstances, although he has endowed it with an almost uncon- 

 querable power, yet when it has been long heatcn, bruised 

 and abused, it will cry out under its tortures, and make its suf- 

 ferings known by the emaciated form, the languid ptdse, and 

 the feeble step. 



It is scarcely less to be regretted, that quackery in farming 

 is little else than experiments upon the capabilities of the vi- 

 tal power in seeds and plants ; and although they too have a 

 most elastic and yielding constitution, yet the neglected plant 

 will tell you, by its stinted growth and scanty fruits, of the vio- 

 lence which is done to its vital energies. 



2. A correct view of the vital power may serve to awaken 

 interest, and excite admiration in view of the simple, yet beau- 

 tiful kws which the Creator has established for the production 

 and perpetuation of animal and vegetable bodies. 



If we take an egg, for example, and examine it, we shall 

 find it has a hard covering, composed of carbonate of lime, 



4 



