NUTRITION OF VEGETABLES* 



III. 



is 



Inquiries concerning the assimilating Pouter in Vegetahles; hy 

 Mr. Henry Braconnot: read at the Academical Society 

 of Sciences of Nanci, November the 22d, 1 806*. 



_ HYTOLOGISTS for a loni? time imagined, that vege- Supposition 



, , / . , , , ... 1 • 1 ^1 ' ^ ^ J that vegetables 



tables were nourished by certam juices, which they extracted extracted nu- 



ready formed from the earth. Van Helmont in great mea- triiious juices 

 sure refuted this by his celebrated experiment. In a box refu*ed by Van 

 containing 100 lbs. of earth, and covered with lead, he Helmont, 

 planted u willow, weighing 50 lbs. TJiis he watered with ^^^l^^^ ^^^ 

 distilled water, and in five years it had acquired an addition 

 to its weight of 1 19 lbs. 3 oz. without any perceptible dimi- 

 nution of the earth. The experiments of Boyle with earth 

 baked in an oven, and those of Duhamel and Bonnet with 

 mossf, prove the same thing. 



Other natural philosophers have pursued the same in- Tiliet showed 

 quiry: Tiliet, in particular, made a number of experiments, ^nTto^eTe- 

 to ascertain whether water and air were the only substances cessary to their 

 necessary for the growth of plants. He filled several pots S^o^^^ • 

 with different earthy matters, some with old plaster, others 

 with pure river sand, fragments of stone broken to powder, 

 &c. ; buried them partly in the ground, to retain the moist- 

 ure; and sowed wheat in them. The wheat produced very 

 fine ears ; and the grains, being sown, produced other fine 

 plants. 



From the infant state of chemistry, at the time, however, None of these 

 none of the plants produced by means of air and water alone ^^ ^" ^ ^"* ^^*^ 

 were analysed. This indeed has since been done ; and it has 

 been advanced, that plants growing in such a manner as to '^^^^ plants ^' 

 have been nourished by water alone, did not furnish as much contained less 



* Abridged from the Annales de Chemie, Vol. LXI. p. 187. Feb. 1807. 



■\- Mr. Procoplus Dcnsidoff of Moscow, who has a very fine botanic Seeds mpstdif- 



garden, raises all sorts of plants bv a peculiar method. He sows the ^*^^"' ^" S^*^"/^" 



J. ,, ■ ^ , ^ • , ,. w nate succeed 



fseeds m moss, where they germinate, and then plants them m pots. In -^ moss 



this way he loses very few seeds of those that grow with most diffi- 

 culty. Note o/ Prof. Willmett^ 



carbon 



