“Let us first consider this as it relates to the vegetable part of the creation. What a profusion of beauty and fragrancy, of shapes and colours, of smells and tastes, is scattered among the herbs and flowers of the ground, among the shrubs, the trees, and the fruits of the field! Colouring in its original glory and perfection triumphs here; red, yellow, green, blue, purple, with vastly more diversities than the rainbow ever knew, or the prism can represent, are distributed among the flowers and the blossoms. And what variety of tastes, both original and compounded, of sweet, bitter, sharp, with a thousand nameless flavours, are found among the herbs of the garden! What an amazing difference of shapes and sizes appears among the trees of the field and forest in their branches and their leaves! and what a luxurious and elegant distinction in their several fruits! How very numerous are their distinct properties in their uses in human life! And yet these two common elements, earth and water, are the only materials out of which they are all composed, from the beginning to the end of nature and time. Let the gardener dress for himself one field of fresh earth, and make it as uniform as he can; then let him plant therein all the varieties of the vegetable world, in their roots or in their seeds, as he shall think most proper; yet out of this common earth, under the droppings of common water from heaven, every one of these plants shall be nourished, and grow up in their proper forms; all the infinity, diversity of shapes and sizes, colours, tastes, and smells, which constitute and adorn the vegetable world, would the climate permit, might be produced out of the same clods. What rich and surprising wisdom appears in that Almighty Operator, who out of the same matter shall perfume the bosom of the rose, and give the garlic its offensive and nauseous powers; who from the same spot of ground shall raise the liquorice and the wormwood, and dress the cheek of the tulip in all its glowing beauties! What a surprise, to see the same field furnish the pomegranate and the orange tree, with their juicy fruit, and the stacks of corn with their dry and husky grains; to observe the oak raised from a little acorn into its stately growth and solid timber; and that pillars for the support of future temples and palaces should spring out of the same bed of earth that sent up the vine with such soft and feeble limbs as are unable to support themselves! What a natural kind of prodigy it is, that chilling and burning vegetables should arise out of the same spot; that the fever and frenzy should start up from the same bed where the palsy and the lethargy lie dormant in their seeds! Is it not exceeding strange that healthful and poisonous juices should rise up, in their proper plants, out