208 PLANT AND ORGANIC CHEMISTRY 



study of new plants, but in the study of old plants it is to be 

 encouraged; for each new investigation of many well-known 

 plants has revealed new chemical principles, and given ad- 

 ditional knowledge of the old ones. We can never know to 

 what practical uses the constituents of any plants may be 

 brought, and the money value of this information should be 

 considered. 



Many chemical compounds which are of the most practi- 

 cal use, now made by synthesis, were first discovered in plants, 

 products of living matter. 



Synthetical chemistry has derived its knowledge from the 

 results of analytical study. Researches in plant analysis have 

 revealed many facts, though the exploration field is still 

 wide. 



In our present state of knowledge, plant chemistry is a safe 

 political ground for either the Protectionist or Free-Trader. 

 The vegetable cell has placed the tariff of human penetration 

 so high, and protected so well its industry, that the plant en- 

 joys the monopoly of proteids and a magazine of other sub- 

 stances. The Free-Trader may console himself, for if he is 

 intelligent enough he can find out the processes, and start 

 his own factory, duty free. 



Professor Cohn, of Breslau, tells us that it is only a question 

 of time when we may hope for the chemist to succeed in doing 

 what the simplest Algae and mosses are able to do, namely, 

 to produce starch from carbonic acid and water. On that day 

 the bread problem, which is in fact the greatest of all social 

 problems, will be solved. 



It is indeed true that those organic compounds which are 

 of the most importance in the life of the plant, the hydro- 

 carbons and the albuminoids, are those which as yet have 

 not permitted the secrets of their production to be discovered. 



In the future, when synthesis has accomplished this pro- 

 phecy, and the synthetical chemist reigns supreme, our coming 

 race, to my imagination, will be chemists, and our farmers 

 will manufacture our food supply of proteids, sugars, and 

 starch. The surface of the land will be one huge teeming 

 laboratory. The plants, the analytical chemist, and others of 



