Food of Plants, and its Transformation. 471 



Art. II. On the Food of Plants, and its Transformation. By 

 Alexander Forsyth. 



(^Continued from p. 399.) 



Thinking, therefore, that the formation of gas in the ground would be 

 found the first and main spring in the accumulating of vegetable tissue, and 

 consequently of every kind of garden produce, I bethought me of the means 

 of raising this gas by holding the face of the earth up to the rays of the sun, 

 and placing the requisite materials under the surface, in such a manner that 

 when heat arose there might also arise gas, or something that had been gas, 

 and was now vegetable tissue, in an active living form ; and though some may 

 think, from the ordinary methods of producing gas by the action of fire, that 

 1 should have had many a long summer day to wait before the sunshine should 

 boii me up a gas out of garden earth to grow tissue in, I can assure such that 

 the first cloudless sunbeam that comes upon the soil at right angles will not 

 leave the mass in the same state as it found it. 



Let us try a common lens, or burning glass, say of one inch diameter ; and, 

 out of the few rays that fall upon that surface, see if we cannot get such a 

 quantity of heat, that when it is bundled together it makes a nice little fire. 

 Ah ! here then is a fire already kindled and to be relied on, provided we can find 

 earth at right angles to its rays, and the materials to make the gas with. 

 These two points therefore must set limits to my present enquiry, namely, 

 the getting the materials to make the gas of, and the manufacture of it ; or, 

 in other words, the distillation of the spirit that is the food and life of the 

 vegetable tissue, out of the ruins of any substance that may contain it, whe- 

 ther animal, vegetable, or mineral. 



First, then, the getting of the materials ; and, instead of giving a list of 

 every substance and matter, clean or filthy, that might be made available for 

 good manure, I will give an example of one, perhaps the most abused, most 

 abundant, and the most valuable. I mean grass, whether young or old, short 

 or long, in the form of old grass turf with the roots and soil, or young short 

 herbage from the lawn, seven days old, and only one inch long. 



Instead of putting this to the old score on the top of a hillock under a tree, 

 as you have done at the Derby Arboretum, and as you saw done at Bicton, 

 I put this valuable article into the mash-pool with as much care as if it were 

 malt ; that is to sa}', I put it under water to prevent its evaporation, and to 

 get the essence or substance of it into the water. " Ah ! " you will say, " this is a 

 poor broth to feed plants on, green grass and water.'" Therefore, to do away 

 with any erroneous idea on this head, and to bring this argument to bear upon 

 every cottager who has a garden, as well as upon every professed gardener, I 

 will assume that good cow-dung is allowed by all to be an excellent manure, 

 and if the gardener, whether cottager or not, had plenty of this article, he 

 would soon enrich his garden ; but how to get cow-dung without the cow, 

 and without buying it, ay there's the difficulty. 



Well then, what do cows eat all the summer long ? Only grass ; and out of 

 that grass they grow fat, give a great quantity of milk, and yield manure. 

 This manure seems to be the draff or dregs, the worst and most worthless of 

 the productions yielded from the grass. If then grass yields such valuable 

 draff after it has been distilled and rectified in the stomach of the cow, what 

 would not the malt (I mean the grass) do, if the spirit were left in it ? Surely 

 it would be better draff than ordinary ; and it is too : therefore I mean to 

 assert that very superior cow-dung may be manufactured from mown grass, 

 without troubling the cows. Let it not be thought that grass is necessary : 

 no ! any green thing belonging to the vegetable kingdom, and the greener 

 the better, will do, and if in flower it is to be preferred : but I must enu- 

 merate an example or two of the most abundant and available articles. Heath 

 and fern, broom and gorse bushes, root and branch. These are the store- 



