96 ON VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY. 



our estates and gardens, by an improvement in our 

 vegetables and fruits, and by the deep interest we 

 take in all those rural circumstances, those local 

 peculiarities and those associations which a coun- 

 try life alone can bestow, and which, by their fas- 

 cinating tendency so frequently rivet us to the 

 spot in which we fix our residence ; we shall then 

 know how to appreciate the importance of the 

 vegetable kingdom, in the scale of the creation ; 

 we shall at once see how immediately it is inter- 

 woven with our nature and our wants, our plea- 

 sures and our occupations ; and we shall feel an 

 irresistible desire to become more familiar with 

 a portion of the universe, so wonderful in its me- 

 chanism and attributes, so comprehensive in its 

 application and laws, and throughout its minutest 

 ramifications, so visibly stamped with the hand, 

 through whose divine agency alone, all things 

 animate and inanimate are regulated. 



