PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB. 415 



as a fertilizer, yet the analytical difference shows no such ine- 

 quality of the constituents. The explanation lies in the fact 

 that the food of man is of a higher class of organic life. You 

 may consider this to be a mere hypothesis. Be it so. In the 

 absence of real knowledge, our only way is to take the most 

 probable hypothesis and examine it thoroughly. Now I claim to 

 have examined this subject for over twenty years ; I claim by con- 

 forming to it, and by a selection of manures, to have produced 

 effects greater than those produced by others around me. If this 

 be true, it is probable that I am not entirely mistaken in my 

 views. There is not a chemist in the world who can explain, on 

 mere analysis, the difference between marble, chalk and lime- 

 stone ; yet marble, be it ground ever so fine, cannot neutralize 

 acidity of the stomach, while chalk will do so at once. Pulver- 

 ized limestone will not fertilize a plant at all, while the lime from 

 oyster-shells, having progressed through organic life, is a valuable 

 manure. 



I claim that the only difference between the animal man, in 

 his organic constituents, and the rocks which originally formed 

 our globe, is that his constituents have been progressed in passing 

 through the various stages of organic life, assuming new func- 

 tions, and reaching a higher organism, until eventually they 

 become a man. Whether you analyze tlie human or the lower 

 animal, you will find nothing in either that you do not find in the 

 rocks ; the only difference is in the proximate conditions. When 

 man decays he does not return to primary conditions, but back 

 to certain proximate conditions of organic matter. If you throw 

 a handful of wheat into a vessel of water, does it go back to its 

 primaries? The grains first will swell up, then burst, and a 

 white powder will settle to the bottom ; another portion will 

 remain held in semi-suspension by the water. That which pre- 

 cipitates is starch, that which is held in suspension is gluten. 

 When the wheat passes into the stomach of the animal, we are 

 told that the gluten goes to make muscle, and the starch to make 

 fat. You will find the organic constituents do not differ mate- 

 rially; they are differently compounded, possess new functions, 

 and assimilate in a different way, and, in this state, become food 

 for plants without passing back to their primary conditions. 



Barnyard manure does not by decomposition pass back to the 

 primaries ; but in all the stages it has occupied it makes a short 

 halt ; as does the wheat in its decomposition at the starch and 



