244 



ORGANIC AND INORGANIC PARTS OF PLANTS. 



Should the progress of science ever serve to place these conditions 

 under man's control, then exhaustless stores of the richest nourish- 

 ment to plants, and the sure means of universal and exuberant 

 productiveness from the poorest soils, will also be at his command. 

 Food for land and plants and brutes and men will be as unlimited 

 and almost as available as the air we breathe. But to indulge in 

 such speculations of the possible future, is now mere dreaming 

 anticipation. My object is more practical. It is to gather and 

 display such faint lights as now may be drawn from previous 

 scientific researches upon this dark and yet interesting subject of 

 inquiry. As little as has been discovered and established by agri- 

 cultural chemists, and still less put to practical use, I believe that 

 new and very important and useful deductions may be derived from 

 the scattered and unconnected truths already ascertained in regard 

 to the nutrition of plants, and, through the medium of plants, the 

 nutrition and fertilization of soils. 



The following table is given by Boussingault as the results of 

 his investigations, showing the proportions of the constituent 

 elements of various ordinary vegetable products. 



From these propositions of the vegetable products stated, it 

 would appear that the per centage of each of its elements is be- 

 tween the following extremes : 



(Carbon from 42.8 

 Hydrogen 5. 



Oxygen 35.6 



Azote 00.4 



Inorganic parts Ashes 



Of the first-named four and great 



to 

 to 

 to 

 to 

 to 



50.7 per cent. 



6.4 

 45.T 



4.2 

 11.3 



constituent parts, carbon 



