54 A DISCOURSE 



And now, after all this, I dare not say that there is nothing more than 

 this mere salt, or spirituous nitre, which concurs to those desired effects 

 that promote fertility, and set the ferment on working : what ignite par- 

 ticles beside, and special composts there may be, of consanguinity and 

 near alliance to the respectable vegetables, (which we know to be of vast 

 difference one from another,) we pretend not to determine ; for some 

 plants are very brisk and quick, others insulse and flat ; some are acid, 

 others more dulcerous and sweet ; they are salt, sour, luscious, austere, 

 hot, bitter, moist, dry, astringent, and of strangely different qualities, not 

 to speak of their effects, which it were hard to number. Therefore, 

 \ that the same compost, or remedy, should be promiscuously universal, is 



the more unlikely, and should be well considered : but admitting this to 

 be solvable, and that we find, by experience, a well-digested compost be- 

 neficial to almost all the vegetable family, may it not, in all probability, 

 • spring from its participation of all those varieties of ferments, (in some at 

 least, though in different proportion,) which we have been speaking of ? 

 As by which each single species draws and assimilates that only to itself, 

 which it finds most congruous to its nature ; and if so it be, then M^e 

 have no more to do than to learn how to prepare our ferments, and apply 

 them accordingly ; namely, acid to acids, sweet to sweets, benign to be- 

 nign, and so the contrary, as we would promote its natural quality ; and 

 this perhaps, either by reducing some parts of them into composts, as their 

 leaves, stalks, fruit, or by some more refined extraction of their salts, 

 conveyed in proper vehicles. And for the better administering of this, 

 the nicer texture of vegetables should diligently be considered, their se- 

 veral vessels and organic parts, since every impregnate liquor is not pre- 

 sently fit for all alike, the figuration of their labiola and curious pores 

 (which it is likely draw several juices and spirits) being very different, as 

 the most sagacious Dr. Grew, and the learned jMalpighius, (both ornaments 

 of this illustrious Society,) have begun the way to us in those elaborate 

 anatomizations, which the world will shortly admire. I insist the rather 

 on this, because we find some plants to reject divers rich compounded 

 liquors, especially such as pretend to work miracles in the Protean changes 



farmer. I must, however, except the oily manures, as rape-dust and soot, which nourish 

 without undergoing the putrid ferment. And here I bfig leave to be understood as agree- 

 ing, that worn-out lands may in time be restored to their former vigour by the influence of 

 the atmosphere, without any foreign assistance : but this is A circumstance not to be accom- 

 plished instaiitanemisly by the application of nitre, or any other substance whose basis is saline. 



