The Hessian fly, still more destructive to wheat, 
has in some seasons threatened the United States 
with a famine. And the French government in 
1813 issued decrees with a view to occasion the 
destruction of the larvae of the grasshopper. 
In general, wet weather is most favourable to 
the propagation of mildew, funguses, rust, and the 
small parasitical vegetables ; dry weather to the 
increase of the insect tribes. Nature, amidst all 
her changes, is continually directing her resources 
towards the production and multiplication of life ; 
and in the wise and grand economy of the whole 
system, even the agents that appear injurious to 
the hopes, and destructive to the comforts of man, 
are in fact ultimately connected with a more ex- 
alted state of his powers and his condition. His 
industry is awakened, his activity kept alive, even 
by the defects of climates and season. By the 
accidents which interfere with his efforts, he is 
made to exert his talents, to look farther into 
futurity, and to consider the vegetable kingdom 
not as a secure and inalterable inheritance, spon- 
taneously providing for his wants ; but as a doubt- 
ful and insecure possession, to be preserved only by 
labour, and extended and perfected by ingenuity. 
