PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB. 413 



the results which that soil is capable of producing, during all 

 future time ; whereas, the farmer can only make use of such con- 

 stituents as are in a condition to be appropriated during the 

 current course of crops. If it were possible for a plant to get all 

 the potash that was in the soil, or all of any of the constituents, 

 the whole globe would be transformed into organic life entirely 

 too suddenly for our purposes. 



The change of condition may occur in a great variety of ways. 

 Every time either of these constituents enters into organic life 

 and goes back to the soil it acquires functions which it did not 

 before possess. Whenever any of the 64 primaries combine, 

 immediately a new property, a condition or function is developed 

 which did not belong to either of the primaries in its original 

 condition. It is true that many of the proximates which are 

 poisonous and many which are not, have the same constituents, 

 but in different conditions. A man may drink dilute nitric acid, 

 and he may drink a solution of sugar, ten seconds apart, and no 

 oxalic acid will be formed ; but let him pour them together before 

 swallowing them, and he will experience the effects generally 

 produced by oxalic acid — you add nothing to the sugar or the 

 nitric acid — nothing is parted with, it is simply a change of con- 

 dition, and the mixture has functions which it did not have 

 before. So it is with every one of the 64 primaries, beginning 

 at the time when our sphere was entirely rock ; then these debris 

 formed the soils which were moved and mixed by floods and 

 other causes, until we have some soils representing many of the 

 64 primaries in the same field ; others, where the debris of the 

 rocks have not been so generally mixed by the floods, are deficient 

 in certain constituents. We find in many instances that a soil 

 contains a mixed quantity of constituents not in a condition to 

 be appropriated by plants, and that by raising on it, and then 

 plowing under, a particular crop, that these ingredients are pro- 

 gressed, and plants are enabled to grow, although nothing has 

 been added of an inorganic kind. 



By re-dissolving and crystalizing certain crystalizable mate- 

 rials many times, we may alter their powers to a great extent. 

 The article known as Prussic Acid, a single drop of which will 

 kill a man, may, if allowed to stand for a year or two in a her- 

 metically sealed glass vessel through Avhich the light can per- 

 meate, be swallowed with impunity ; its functions are changed. 

 We say it is decomposed, but nothing has been added or taken 



