THE EXPLOITATION OF 
PLANTS 
CHAPTER I 
INTRODUCTION 
By F. W. OLIVER 
Quain Professor of Botany in University College, London 
It is not possible to say offhand what proportion 
“commodities of vegetable origin bear to the total of all 
merchantable goods. The volume of trade in plant 
products may be guessed to be not less than one-half, 
and, if coal be included, may well exceed 60 per cent. 
of the whole. Moreover, animal products derived from 
the herds which we tend depend largely on a proper 
ytilisation of the plants which form their food, so that 
the exploitation of animals is closely related to our 
present subject matter. 
The reason for this pre-eminence of plants is, of 
course, the fact that the plant is the universal agency 
by which inorganic matter is worked up into organic. 
It is true that chemical research has been able to build 
up synthetically not a few organic substances, including 
many that are not known to be produced by plants in 
B 
