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these kind friends are thus the purveyors to animal life. 

 Not only is man thus directly fed by these natural agents, 

 but, to keep up a constant unceasing supply, a large propor- 

 tion is sent back to the soil in a form to invigorate man's 

 food. This refunded capital is variously called humin, 

 nlmin, geine. Ulmin, or ulmic acid, is the first formed; 

 humin is formed from ulmin by the absorption of oxygen ; 

 geine, or geic acid, from humin by the further absorption of 

 oxygen. 



We will describe all these changes, however, under the 

 general term of geine. Under some form geine is essential 

 to agriculture. It is the result of decaying vegetable 

 matter, or, in other words, it is the active principle of mould, 

 and is the direct result of putrefaction. It is carbon, oxy- 

 gen, and hydrogen. It has a powerful affinity for nitrogen, 

 one of the constituents of the atmosphere, and whenever it 

 comes in contact, the hydrogen of the geine unites with the 

 nitfogen of the air, and ammonia is the result. It also ab- 

 sorbs water freely, and this is why bottom lands, full of 

 geine, fail to suffer from drought. The geine attracts 

 moisture from the air, and keeps the plant alive. These 

 salts, humin, ulmin, and geine, were formerly called extract 

 of mould. They are, for the most part, soluble in water. 

 For the sake of brevity, we will embrace all these salts, as 

 well as crenic and apocrenic acids, convertible with the 

 salts, under the general term mould. So far as nourishment 

 is derived from the soil, this substance is the food of plants. 

 It has been deposited over the cla,y by the general decay of 

 vegetation, through many ages, and according to the amount 

 deposited depends the value of the land. 



Why it is that plants live and grow, or how they grow ie' 

 a mystery no philosopher has ever been able to explain. 

 God gives the vital principle, and so long as that continues 

 the plant is able to resist an opposing power, which is 

 chemistry. When life ceases, chemistry then asserts its 

 power, and decay begins, which leads to fermentation, and 



