102 ANNALS OF

on the surface. If, after this union, the mixture be tasted, the acidity or sourness of the vinegar will be destroyed, having met with, in the soil, particles opposite in their nature; and, by mix- ing, has not only altered the taste and property of the acid, but likewise the taste and property of the volatile alkaline salts which the soil con- tained; and this union forms what the chemists call neutral salts, and what I shall call the GranD ARCANUM OF VEGETATIVE NATURE,

A curtailed display of this process, in the wild but incomparable arrangement of nature, may assist the farmer in his reasonings, why dung, or any additional body, applied to his ground, will enrich it. This is one of the many ways adopted to furnish the earth with a fruitful sup- ply of vegetative principle. In this soil we find a large proportion of absorbent alkaline particles, possessed with a power of attracting other par- ticles incessantly flying in the air, and which chemists, amongst other names, call NITROUS acip, and which I shall call, for the sake of be- ing more generally understood, AIR, OF ATMO- SPHERICAL VINEGAR. By the junction of these two bodies, as it was with the earth and common vinegar, there is formed the same neutral mix- ture, and the absorbent alkaline salts in the earth and the air vinegar both so blended as to de- stroy their natural property, and be productive