THE FARMER^S MAGAZINE. 



ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF ENGLAND. 



A Weekly Council was held on Wednesday the 

 26th of May, present i Colonel Challoner, Trustee, in the 

 chair ; Lord Waisingham, Lord Bridport, The Barons 

 de Laffert (of Mecklenburg), Mr. Raymond Burker, 

 Mr. Caldwell, Mr. Corbet, Mr. Glegg, Mr. Harkness, 

 Professor Henfrey, Mr. Jennings, Mr. Maddison, Mr. 

 Majendie, Mr. Milward, Mr. Pollard, Mr. H. A. 

 Smith, Mr. Timms, Mr. Burch Western, Mr. Wilson 

 (of Stowlangtoft), and Professor Wilson. 



Communications were received; 1. From the Board 

 of Trade, announcing the occurrence of a disease in the 

 wheat -crops of the valley of Mexico, called by the 

 Indiana " chahmztle," and similar in external appear- 

 ftnoe to the disease known to £nglish farmers under the 

 term ru»t. 2. From Mr. William Cohen, of Bishops- 

 gate Churchyard, offering his services to collect 8ta- 

 tistical information on the " actual consumption of 

 guano, whether the real or spurious article," in order 

 to show, what he believed to be the case, that one-half 

 at least of the substance sold as guano would prove to 

 be spurious imitations of that article ; and by such evi- 

 dence to induce Messrs. Antony Gibbs and Co. to 

 reduce their price for genuine guano, with a view to 

 double their sales by driving the spurious mixtures out 

 of the market. 



Professor Henfrey, of King's College, London, then 

 delivered the following lecture on Vegetable Physiology 

 in reference to the kinds, races, and organs of plants. 



Mr. President and Geutlemen, — In preparing to execute the 

 task with which you have honoured me, I felt couaiderable 

 dilficuUy from the peculiar circumatancea of the case. The 

 occasional lectures which have been delivered in this room have 

 been for the most part given with a view to promote practical 

 ajjnculture, and they have had a more peculiar iuterest here 

 from the circumstance that these experiments have generally 

 been uudertakeu at the instigation of the Society. Now, 

 8cienti6c men, called upon at short notice, are not always 

 in a position to furnish new facts or new conclusions, or 

 to bring forward series of reaearches which are capable of prac- 

 tical application. In my own case, my recent work has been 

 devoted especially to subjects whose application to science or 

 who*e relation to science is at present lather remote, and in 

 fact to subjects which are so abstract that they scarcely 

 admit of popular treatment : I was therefore thrown more 

 on the general subject. Here again a certain difficulty met 

 me in the circumstance that vegetable physiology may be 

 said to be still in its infancy. Hence it is in possession 

 only of a few well-established generalizations, and these are 

 too well known, and too commonplace to form the subject of 

 a lecture ; while the objects of its present activity consist 

 chiefly of questions still in a state of dubate, overloaded 

 with unclassed, unsatisfactory, and even contradictory 

 evidence, the attempt to discuss which could only have led 

 to a kind of controversial the^is. It appeared to me, there- 

 fore, better, esp-cially in cnnsid- ration of circumstances to 

 which I shall presently allude, to occupy your time with a 

 few iUostrations of the oatore and objects of the science of 



vegetable physiology itself, selecting these illustrations, as 

 far as possible, from departments of the subject which either 

 do at present or hereafter may admit of a practical applica- 

 tion. The circnmstance to which I have just alluded as 

 especially influencing me is the tendency or the direction 

 of af;ricultnra! physiology of late years — the tendency which 

 rather leaves vegetable physiology, properly so tailed, in 

 the background. If we look back for a few years at the 

 literature of agricultural science, we find that the works 

 which have made most impression, those which have been 

 most valuable, and are best known, have been written by 

 chemists. I need scarcely allude to the works of Liebig 

 and Mulder; even in the writings of Boussingault, and of 

 Lawes and Gilbert, vegetable physiology, properly so called, 

 has been recognised; still the vital qualities of plants have 

 been rather looked upon as secondary considerations than 

 as primary. The chemistry of the subject has been that 

 which has principally occupied attention. Far from com- 

 plaining of this, far from regarding it as a mistake. I regard 

 it as desirable, inevitable, if we would make secure pro- 

 gress, because vegetable physiology does really depend 

 upon chemistry for some of its most important materials. 

 Vegetable physiology is not merely organic chemistry ; 

 but organic chemistry is required to advance to a 

 certain degree of perfection, before we have the mateiial 

 1 upon which vegetable physiology, properly so called, 

 can work. It is hardly necessary to remind you of the 

 I views which have been entertained by those who have 

 i pressed the chemical theory of physiology too far, with 

 the notion that the life of plants or animals consisted 

 merely in a succession of chemical changes. Such a view 

 can only be entertained by those who take an extremely 

 one-sided view of the subject. The old illustration of the 

 duck's egg and the hen's egg are sufficient to show that 

 there is something more than chemistry in the difference of 

 species, and the same argument may be carried throughout 

 all the details of life, throughout the whole phenomena of 

 organization. Chemists will scarcely be able to distinguish, 

 by any means belonging exclusively to the chemist, between 

 the germ of the hen and the duck ; but in those germs, un- 

 distinguishable from one another, lies the energy which 

 results in the product of a totally different organization. 

 The line of argument thus illustrated shows at once that we 

 must, in order to cultivate vegetable physiology, advance a 

 step beyond the mere examination of chemical conditions 

 and changes, and take into account the phenomena of life. 

 The phenomena of life as regards plants may be called the 

 phenomena of organization — that is, the phenomena pre- 

 sented by the conversion of mineral or dead matter into 

 organs. Now, the difference between organs and sub- 

 stances — those parts or constituents which distinguish 

 living things from mineral or dead siibatances — lies in the 

 circumstance, that while in subslauces we have what we 

 may call merely qualities, in the organs we have what are 

 called functions. The qualities are, as it were, passive 

 characteristics ; and functions are active characteristics — 

 manifestations of constant, or at all events periodical 

 activity, in the presence or manifestation of which we dis" 

 tinguish the force which we call the vital force. This con" 

 tinned activity, more or less independent of external cause ^ 



