168 



THE WHEAT CULTUKIST. 



ten thousand mouths to drink in the delicious morsels 

 which are to aid in building up the stems and unfold- 

 ing the various j^^i'ts of the plant. The expanding 

 leaves are always bountifully supplied with available 

 nourishment. But it is not so with those parts of the 

 plant that derive their nourishment from the soil. Grow- 

 ing plants may send their numerous rootlets into the 

 earth for food, when the untold number of hungry mouths 

 may be completely enveloped in atoms of just such sub- 

 stance as is required to promote the luxuriant growth 

 of plants ; and still those plants may famish, droop, and 

 die, simply because the vegetable nutrition was not in 

 an available condition to promote the growth of the 

 plants. Human beings are sometimes cast away on the 

 briny ocean, where they famish and die for want of a 

 refreshing draught of water, when nothing but a vast 

 sea is spread out before them. 



Analytical chemists are capable of analyzing soil with 

 such remarkable accuracy that they can detect a thou- 

 sandth part of one grain of nitrogen, or phosphorus ; 

 and yet their analyses, when made with the utmost pre- 

 cision, may not always furnish any reliable data to aid 

 the practical farmer in the cultivation of his fields. 



Carbonaceous Material. 



The vast quantities of suet stored about the kidneys 

 of beef cattle, mutton sheep, and well-fattened swine, 

 are composed largely of carbonaceous matter. The 

 most excellent specimens of sugar are composed almost 

 entirely of carbon. Charcoal is only a mass of almost 

 pure carbon ; and the costly, beautiful diamond, is com- 

 posed chiefly of carbon. Let either of these substances 



