290 PHYSIOLOGY AT THE FARM. 



Whence it follows that the vegetable kingdom must keep pace 

 with the most rapid increase of the animal kingdom ; and 

 therefore that the antidote to the poison in the atmosphere 

 will be active in proportion to the growth of the poison itself. 

 Animals cannot multiply except by the multiplication of 

 plants, and plants cannot multiply without purifying the 

 atmosphere. 



When we come to the analysis of the individual members 

 of the organic world, whether vegetable or animal, we find 

 each individual first of all reducible into fluid parts and solid 

 parts. Again, each of these two forms of constituents are re- 

 ducible into proximate elements, or more properly proximate 

 principles. And finally, each proximate principle is reducible 

 into ultimate elements. 



The ultimate elements of organic matter are simple chemical 

 bodies ; that is, bodies found in organic nature, which chemists 

 have not yet been able to separate into any ulterior elements. 

 Of these oxygen, carbon, and potassium are examples. 



The proximate elements or proximate principles are bodies 

 entering into the constitution of the solids or the fluids of 

 organic nature, which consist of more or fewer of the ultimate 

 elements once compounded. Of these gum, starch, sugar, 

 albumen, fibrine, and caseine are examples. 



The ultimate elements of organic nature admit of being 

 arranged under two heads; namely, those which are almost 

 universally present in the several proximate principles, and 

 those which exist less constantly, and when found, then in 

 smaller proportion. 



The ultimate elements of the first order are oxygen, hydrogen, 

 carbon, and nitrogen. It is to be remarked, however, that 

 though nitrogen holds the same place as the three other ele- 

 ments just enumerated in the principal nutritive proximate 

 principles derived from the vegetable kingdom, yet in the 



