Note 12 — FLEMISH HUSBANDRY.

It is well known, that vegetables will grow in pure sand, by watering them, and that it is not till they blossom, or rather till they produce seed, that they perish. It is mentioned by Bracconnot, in the Annales de Chimie, for February and March, 1808, that he sowed the seeds of various plants in pure river sand, in litharge, in flour of sulphur, and even among metal, or common leaden shot; and in every instance he employed only distilled water for their nourishment. The plants throve, and passed through all the usual gradations of growth to perfect maturity. The author then proceeded to gather the entire produce, the roots, stems, leaves, pods, &c. These were accurately weighed, dried, and again weighed; then submitted to the ordinary means used in a careful analysis, when he obtained from these vegetables, all the materials peculiar to each individual species, precisely as if it had been cultivated in a natural soil. "Oxygen and hydrogen, (says this writer) with the assistance of solar light, appear to be the only elementary substances employed in the constitution of the whole universe: and Nature in her simple progress, works the most infinitely diversified effects by the slightest modification in the means she employs."