V. 



SOME PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF CHOCOLATE- 

 SEEDS. — VALUE OF CHOCOLATE AS AN ARTI- 

 CLE OF FOOD. 



PHE seeds of plants contain a germ, or embryo, together with 

 - 1 - a certain amount of food. As soon as the germ sprouts, the 

 food, or a good part of it, is consumed by the seedling, being used 

 by it in the formation of new parts, such as roots and leaves by 

 which the materials for more food can be obtained from the soil and 

 air. Now it happens that the food of plants is pretty much the 

 same as the food of animals, although there is this marked differ- 

 ence in the manner of procuring it : plants can construct their 

 own food from inorganic or mineral matters taken from the earth 

 and atmosphere, while animals, even those which are most like 

 plants, must have their supply of food from organic nature. 



Since, then, plants prepare the food which animals are to use 

 (of course flesh-eating animals use their plants, so to speak, at 

 second-hand), it comes to pass very naturally that the food in a 

 good many seeds has been recognized from early times as very 

 useful food for man. Thus the cereals — wheat, maize, oats, bar- 

 ley, and rice — are the seeds of grasses ; and there are many other 

 seeds, such as beans, peas, buckwheat, and so on, which have been 

 appropriated as food by man from remote antiquity. But the 

 seeds of some plants are unfit for human food, owing to disagree- 

 able properties which they possess; while there are a few which 

 stand on the very edge of the limit of foods, and have been used in 

 time of scarcity. 



