By permission ol the " Canada 



BREAKING NEW GROUND 



INTRODUCTION 



The vegetable products of the world are of great interest to man, as upon them he is 

 dependent for his very existence, his clothing, his home, his means of locomotion, and many 

 of his pleasures. Imagine for a moment what the world would be, if it was deprived 

 of plant life. Wheat, rice, millets, oats, maize, and the other cereals, on one or other of 

 which every individual of both the most primitive and the most civilized nations 

 depends for his sustenance, would disappear, together with potatoes, yams, cassava or 

 manioc, and all the important starch-producing plants. There would be no fruits or vegetables ; 

 tea, coffee, cocoa, and sugar would vanish ; tobacco and many of the chief drugs would cease 

 to be obtainable. Most modern sports would be impracticable because there would be no 

 india-rubber for balls and tyres, no wood for bats, golf sticks, and racquets, and leather could no 

 longer be tanned. Cotton and linen would go, and wool, hair, and silk would be the only 

 fibres for the manufacture of cloths and other textiles. There would be no wines or spirits, in 

 fact, life as we know it at present would come to a standstill. Supposing, however, that man 

 could exist in a world containing no plants, to what extent could he manufacture, with all 

 the assistance which modern science affords him, the substances necessary for his life ? In 

 spite of the enormous strides which science, and particularly chemical science, has made, man 

 could not support himself . It is true that one section of the commercial world has recently 

 been profoundly affected by the artificial manufacture of indigo. Another section is seriously 

 considering the situation created by chemists having discovered how to make vanillin, the 

 essential principle of the vanilla "bean." The development of the coal-tar industry has 

 practically extinguished certain planting industries. From time to time fears are expressed 

 that the artificial manufacture of sugar, already possible, or that the preparation of chemical 

 rubber may become commercially practicable. In spite, however, of these developments 

 the fact remains that man is unable to repeat the processes by which the wheat plant 

 manufactures starch from water and the atmosphere. He cannot from similar elementary 

 substances make cotton, wood, the active principles of tea, coffee, cocoa, or tobacco, for all 

 of which he is dependent on plant life. There is no need to elaborate the matter ; enough 

 has been said k to prove the absolute importance and necessity to man of the vegetable 

 products of the world. 



There is a tendency, however, for man as he becomes more civilised to fail to recognise 



i— CP. 



