GENERAL REMARKS. 191 



ble instance of flexibility. Even the pine is not very fastidious as to position ; the marsh, 

 arid plain, each developing the individual to its greatest dimensions ; but these are not 

 very common instances, and when we come to consider the plants nutritious to the raammi- 

 fera, we find they are bound under the law of conditions and speciality ; and hence it is 

 their speciality as to light and shade, heat and cold, dry and wet, and particularly as to 

 nutriment, must be studied with care. We are not able, it is true, to command in all 

 respects the required conditions ; what we may do is to place them in the most favorable 

 conditions which our means will admit ; shading and lighting, so far as artificial obstruc- 

 tion is practicable, and drying a soil by deep draining is always possible, and frequently 

 wetting the plant by irrigation is equally so. An interesting inquiry relative to the change 

 of the product consequent upon a change of place, has been pursued to a limited extent. 

 Plants acrid and poisonous, when grown in the marsh, become wholesome and nutritious 

 food in the dry garden. The increase of certain elements, as gluten, starch and dextrine, 

 in wheat and other cereals — such a result and special adaptations to secure a given result 

 will constitute a refined agriculture in time. Change or modification of product by varia- 

 ble modes of cultivation, will increase the profits of labor ; this result has a different aim 

 than the mere development of the individual, though they can not be wholly disconnected : 

 the changes of which I have been speaking, are of course limited ; it is not possible to 

 modify results so far as to compromise the integrity of the species. Indian corn as may 

 be seen on referring to the analyses, is very variable in its composition : sweet corn owes 

 its peculiarities to an excessive development of dextrine ; its presence in an excessive 

 quantity gives it the peculiarities so remarkable ; shrivelling as if it had not ripened when 

 it was gathered ; but still it is Indian corn, though far removed from early Canadian corn. 

 There is always a boundary, in which all the changes which a species can undergo, may 

 be circumscribed ; and however wide these boundaries are, they can not be said to stretch 

 themselves within the paling of another species. Canada corn is as unlike another cereal, 

 as Sweet or Tuscarora, or Calico corn, though the latter is very rich in starch ; in each of 

 these, oil, gluten, dextrine and starch varies. If it were possible to transmute species 

 by change of product and variability of elements, we should see the possibility realized 

 in the cultivated vegetables. It is under cultivation, that the freest scope is given to 

 chemical and physical forces ; where the conditions are the most favorable for aiding its 

 escape from the bondage of type or cast, from the trammels imposed by a law of nature. 

 We can discover, however, only the individual development which makes no advances 

 towards a new specific development ; and hence we may safely infer that though individual 

 change is common, yet it goes not out so far as to inosculate with any existing form be- 

 longing to a different type ; it is hedged in by impassible barriers'. 



The food of man, as it exists in the cereal! and other vegetable products, has been 

 developed in them in quantities far greater than they ever produced it in a state of nature. 

 The cereals then exist in a forced or unnatural state, and hence in addition to the ordi- 

 nary agents, as light, heat and moisture, the soil in which they have been made to grow, 



