62 GEINE. 



acid, the great practical lesson of all agricultural ex- 

 perience, teaches that geine is essential to the growth 

 and perfection of seed ; that without geine, crops 

 are not raised. Geine is as essential to plants, as is 

 food to animals. So far as nourishment is derived 

 from the soil, geine is the food of plants. It may 

 be laid down as the eighth principle of agricultural 

 chemistry, that geine in some form, is essential 



TO AGRICULTURE. 



105. In all its forms, it is agriculturally one and 

 the same thing. They are all included in the terms 

 humus, or mould, or geine. Geine, in its agricultu- 

 ral sense, is a generic term. It includes all the de- 

 composed organic matter of the soil. It concerns 

 the farmer less to know the chemical constitution, 

 than it does the practical, agricultural value of a 

 class of compounds, termed geine. Restricting 

 that term to the definite compound, which chemists 

 call geine, an account of its relations, will convey 

 a full idea of whatever other organic compounds are 

 found in soil. 



106. It has been stated already, that geine is the 

 product of decomposition of bodies, once endowed 

 with life. For the present purpose, it may be con- 

 sidered, as the result of vegetable decomposition. 



107. Life, and the manner how plants grow, may 



