70 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



LONDON, OR CENTRAL FARMERS' CLUB. 



THE COMPOSITION OF DIFFERENT VARIETIES OF VEGETABLES AND PLANTS, AND 



THEIR RESPECTIVE VALUES AS FOOD. 



The monthly meeting of the Club was held on Monday 

 evening, December 5, at the club-house, Blackfriars ; 

 Mr. John Thomas, of Bletsoe, in the chair. The 

 attendance of members was very numerous. 



The subject for discussion, introduced by Mr. J. C, 

 Nesbit, of Kennington, was, " The Composition of 

 different varieties of Vegetables and Plants, and their 

 respective Values as Food." 



After a few introductory remarks from the Chairman, 



Mr. Nesbit spoke as follows :— Mr. Chairman and 

 gentlemen, the subject which I have to bring under your 

 notice this evening, is " The Composition of different 

 varieties of Vegetables and Plants, and their respective 

 Values as Food." For this purpose it will be necessary 

 for me to trace generally the nature of plants, the mode 

 of their growth, and the various products which they 

 bring forth, as regards the farming of various countries, 

 and more particularly as respects that of our own. It 

 is impossible for me to enter fully iato all the details of 

 this subject. What I propose this evening is, to give 

 you a general view of the properties of the plants which 

 you cultivate ; not entering into so much detail as re- 

 gards particular varieties of plants as I intend to do 

 when the investigations on which I am at present en- 

 gaged are completed. You will, I am sure, excuse me 

 if I address you on this occasion simply as a teacher or 

 instructor. I know there are many persons here who 

 are acquainted with the nature of those things of 

 which I am about to speak ; but others are not, and 

 if I were to take up too scientific a position in stating 

 the results of my experiments or researches, I should 

 probably not afford so much satisfaction as I may do 

 through simplifying the matter to the utmost of my 

 ability. 1 shall, therefore, endeavour to do this, and 

 begin at once with the plants themselves and their struc- 

 ture. Plants — I am now speaking of land plants — have 

 their rootlets down in the soil ; they have their stems, 

 and they have their seed-producing parts ; and there is 

 a sequence of life from the moment of germination up- 

 wards, till they again produce seeds. In this process 

 a great number of things are comprehended. In the 

 first place, according to the different varieties of plants 

 you must have the materials from which they will grow. 

 It is necessary that i should mention at once what 

 those materials are, because I intend to trace in the 

 plants themselves the process by which they form the 

 materials that constitute the food of animals. In the 

 first place, then, I say, plants derive from the soil a 

 proper quantity of mineral matter, supposing it either to 

 have been there naturally, or to have been placed there 

 by the art of man : secondly, they find in the soil 

 some available sources of organic matter ; but they 

 obtain from the air the chief amount of these sub- 

 stances. Now, I wish to point out the differences be- 

 tween the mineral and the organic matter. The plants 

 obtain from the soil their mineral matter : from this 

 matter all the bones of animals are formed ; and if the 

 plants had not the power of obtaining from the soil 

 the mineral matter required by animals, animals could 

 not subsist upon them. The other matter, that is the 

 organic, is composed of four elementary substances, 

 namely, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. 

 There is a great difference (and I wish particu- 



larly to impress this point on the minds of all 

 the gentlemen who are present), there is an im- 

 mense difference in the habits of plants; and while 

 certain conditions will do very well for certain plants, 

 for others they will be found not at all adapted. We 

 find, for example, that some plants will only live on the 

 previously-produced juices of other plants, being, for 

 example, such parasites as the mistletoe and the dodder ; 

 while others, again, live on the bare rock, and from the 

 mineral matter of the rock and the organic matter of 

 the air they by their growth make a mixed soil adapted 

 for the growth of other plants of higher organization. 

 What I have to do to-night, however, is to speak more 

 particularly of the plants required in farming operations 

 to produce the food of animals and men. Out of hun- 

 dreds and thousands of the plants of nature you select 

 a certain number, in order to provide sustenance and 

 make the utmost profit that you can. These plants re- 

 quire both mineral matter, and matter which I call or- 

 ganic, which is derived from the air aad from what 

 comes down from the air, or from the rootlets of pre- 

 vious series of plants which grew in the soil, and there 

 decompos, to furnish gradually to subsequent plants 

 what they might not otherwise have obtained in suffi- 

 cient quantity. Now, with respect to the growth of 

 plants, when the seed is in the soil we have first the 

 germination there ; we have little rootlets sent down- 

 wards and little germs sent upwards ; and this goes on 

 at the expense of the seed which was sown, until the 

 root meets in the ground the mineral material which it 

 requires. The rootlets descend into the ground till 

 they meet with mineral materials, which sent into the 

 leaves through the action of the "sun absorb organic 

 matters from the air, which uniting with the proper 

 mineral constituents produce all the various vegetable 

 fibres and structures necessary for the continuance of 

 the life of the plant. When this life has commenced, it 

 must continuenntil the destruction of that particular plant 

 takes place; and when that occurs, you have, as the na- 

 tural end of the life of the plant, the production of seeds 

 of its own kind, calculated to continue the life of the 

 species. In the growth of the seeds, after a certain portion 

 of time has elapsed, the whole of the stem and of the roots 

 begin to feel an absorbing power, and the nutritive ma- 

 terial which has accumulated, or the chief portion of it, 

 is withdrawn from the stem and rootlets, and accumu- 

 lated in the seed, so that under all conditions the seed of 

 the plant constitutes the most valuable portion of it. In 

 almost all cases in which food is required, the seed is the 

 plant's most valuable substance. This product is always 

 found to be more conducive to the support of animals — 

 that is to say, a smaller quantity will be more valu- 

 able — than any other portion of the plant. Take the 

 root, or the straw ; these will bear no comparison what- 

 ever with that which is the ultimate product of the life 

 of a plant, namely, the seed itself, which has been or- 

 dained to be the reproducer of the life of the species. It 

 so happens, also, that herbivorous animals, and animals 

 that live upon vegetables, and so on, obtain in the va- 

 rious seeds a larger amount of support than they can 

 possibly derive from any other form of vegetable matter. 

 You will find the production of seed to be one of the 

 most importnnt points in the whole economv of farming. 



