h spots would be covered
with vegetables; for, since they cannot be decomposed, their number must
always increase.

MRS. B.

But, my dear, heat and water are quite as essential to the formation of
vegetables, as they are to their decomposition. Besides, it is from the
dead vegetables, reduced to their elementary principles, that the rising
generation is supplied with sustenance. No young plant, therefore, can
grow unless its predecessors contribute both to its formation and
support; and these not only furnish the seed from which the new plant
springs, but likewise the food by which it is nourished.

CAROLINE.

Under the torrid zone, therefore, where water is never frozen, and the
heat is very great, both the processes of vegetation and of fermentation
must, I suppose, be extremely rapid?

MRS. B.

Not so much as you imagine: for in such climates great part of the water
which it requires for these processes is in an aeriform state, which is
scarcely more conducive either to the growth or formation of vegetables
than that of ice. In those latitudes, therefore, it is only in low damp
situations, sheltered by woods from the sun's rays, that the smaller
tribes of vegetables can grow and thrive during the dry season, as dead
vegetables seldom retain water enough to produce fermentation, but are,
on the contrary, soon dried up by the heat of the sun, which enables
them to resist that process; so that it is not till the fall of the
autumnal rains (which are very violent in such climates), that
spontaneous fermentation can take place.

The several fermentations derive their names from their principal
products. The first is called the _saccharine fermentation_, because its
product is _sugar_.

CAROLINE.

But sugar, you have told us, is found in all vegetables; it cannot,
therefore, be the product of their decomposition.

MRS. B.

It is true that this fermentation is not confined to the decomposition
of vegetables, as it continually takes place during their life; and,
indeed, this circumstance has, till lately, prevented it from being
considered as one of the fermentations. But the process appears so
analogous to the other fermentations, and the formation of sugar,
whether in living or dead vegetable matter is so evidently a new
compound, proceeding from the destruction of the previous order of
combinations, and essential to the subsequent fermentations, that it is
now, I believe, generally esteemed the first step,