80 BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. 



FOOD OF PLANTS, AND SOURCES OF SUPPLY. 



BY DR. JAMES R. NICHOLS. 



The most delightful and instructive of the studies connected 

 with the farm, relate to plant-life and the food of plants. It 

 may seem to many that a consideration of the food of plants 

 implies the necessity of a belief in the possession by plants of 

 certain organs or powers of digestion and assimilation ; and this 

 belief should be entertained, for it is founded upon fact. Plants 

 do indeed in a most proper sense eat and drink, and they are as 

 capricious in regard to the kind and quality of the food which 

 they demand, as are animals or human beings. It is as inter- 

 esting to study the nature of the appetite and wants of a stalk 

 of corn or wheat, or a blade of timothy, as that of a child 

 which the mother so carefully and anxiously watches and tends 

 during the weeks and months of early infancy. 



What a mystery there is in the life of a plant ! It is true, 

 modern science, by the aid of the microscope and chemical 

 analysis, has solved many intricate problems connected with 

 plant-life, which are exceedingly interesting and instructive. 

 The nature of the substances employed in building up the plant- 

 structure is well understood, and also the form of mechanism 

 which is adopted in the first beginnings of growth, and the 

 chemical changes and transformations which occur ; but the 

 nature of the vital force which guides, and upon which all 

 activity depends, we do not understand, and it is probable that 

 human research will never shed much light upon this mysteri- 

 ous but most interesting problem. The little microscopic cell is 

 the workshop in which great changes are elaborated, and during 

 the season of vegetable growth this is the seat of the most in- 

 tense activity. Every plant that grows upon our earth, however 

 great or small, must be considered as having originated from a 

 single cell, so iufmitesimally minute, that the highest powers of 

 the microscope are required to observe it. If we turn over one 

 of the pebbles common in our brooks, we shall find a slimy 

 material, of a greenish hue, adhering to its under side. This 

 covering is a true plant, but it is one of the lowest of known 

 forms. If we examine it with the microscope, it will be found 

 to be perfect in structure, having an organism so wonderful as 

 to command our admiration. Feeble and insignificant as it is, 



