ORGANIC CHEMISTRY 



IN ITS APPLICATION TO 



VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY AND AGRICULTURE. 



The object of Organic Chemistry is to discover the chemical 

 conditions essential to the life and perfect development of animals 

 and vegetables, and generally to investigate all those processes of 

 organic nature which are due to the operation of chemical laws. 

 Now, the continued existence of all living beings is dependent on 

 the reception by them of certain substances, which are applied 

 to the nutrition of their frame. An inquiry, therefore, into the 

 conditions on which the life and growth of living beings depend, 

 involves the study of those nutritive substances, as well as the 

 investigation of the sources whence they are derived, and of the 

 changes undergone by them in the process of assimilation. 



A beautiful connexion subsists between the organic and inor- 

 ganic kingdoms of nature. Inorganic matter affords food to 

 plants ; and they, on the other hand, yield the means of subsist- 

 ence to animals. The conditions necessaiy for animal and vege- 

 table nutrition are essentially different. An animal requires for 

 its development, and for the sustenance of its vital functions, a 

 certain class of substances which can be generated only by 

 organic beings possessed of life. Although many animals are 

 entirely carnivorous, yet their primary nutriment must be derived 

 from plants ; for the animals upon »which they subsist receive 

 their nourishment from vegetable matter. Plants, on the other 



part i. 2 



