300 AUSTRALASIAN 



the plant, but is in fact an excrement, thrown off as superfluous, 

 which, if not collected by the bee and by its means made 

 available for the use of man, would either be devoured by 

 other insects, which do not store honey, or be resolved into its 

 original elements and dissipated in the air. 



The foregoing statements can be supported by reference to 

 authorities which can leave no doubt as to their correctness, 

 namely, Sir Humphrey Davy in his " Elements of Agricultural 

 Chemistry," written more than fifty years ago, and Professor 

 Liebig in his " Chemistry in its Application to Agriculture and 

 Physiology," written some ten years later, and the English 

 version of which is edited by Dr. Lyon Playfair and Professor 

 Gregory. These works, which may be said to form the foun- 

 dation of a rational system of agriculture, were written with 

 that object alone in view, and the passages about to be quoted 

 were not intended to support any theory in favour of bee culture 

 or otherwise ; they deal simply with scientific truths which the 

 layman can safely follow and accept as true upon such unde- 

 niable authority, although he may be incapable himself of 

 following up the processes which have led to their discovery or 

 which prove their correctness. 



SACCHARINE MATTER OF PLANTS NOT DERIVED FROM THE 



SOIL. 



Liebig, when describing the chemical processes connected 

 with the nutrition of plants, informs us (at page 4*) that — 



" There are two great classes into which all vegetable products may 

 be arranged. The first of these contain nitrogen ; in the last this 

 element is absent. The compounds destitute of nitrogen may be 

 divided into those in which oxygen form a constituent (starch, lig- 

 nine, &c. ), and those into which it does not enter (oils of turpentine 

 and lemon, &c.)." 



And at page 141 that 



" Sugar and starch do not contain nitrogen ; they exist in the plants 

 in a free state, and are never combined with salts or with alkaline bases 

 They are compounds formed from the carbon of the carbonic acid and 

 the elements of water (oxygen and hydrogen)." 



* The edition to which reference is made is the fourth, published 1847. 



