11 
THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
.,.! ,11 ihe Albany Gnllivalor. 
VEGETABLE NUTRinON. 
The writer scarcely expects to be able to ofTer 
any new views to those who have studied the 
subject thoroughly. His object is to endeavor 
to e.\'plain the .subject to the understanding ol 
practical men, — the larmers andgardners, those 
who worh toe soil andderive their sustenance 
Irom it. Generally speaking, all tillers ot tlie 
.soil know that it they apply a load ol horse sta- 
ble manure to a certain quantity ot land, the 
product will be increased by it to a certain ex- 
tent; but they do not know tiie minute princi- 
ple,s on which it acts. We ail know that when 
we eat our dinners, our hunger is sati.s.hed, but 
how many ot us know the true cause of that 
hunger and the mode or true cause of its satis- 
taction 1 It i;. precisely the same with plants as 
with nnimals, including men. If we do no' get 
enough to eat, we languish, and ultimalely per 
ish ; if plants do not get enough to eat, they also 
languish and peri,sh, or yield a stinted product. 
Plants and animals are enabled to grow by what 
they eat, and although their mode of eating, is 
different they both act upon the same principle, 
and both grow by what they teed on, and in no 
other .vay. This is vegetable and animal nutri- 
tion. The increase of a plant in size, fs .supplied 
by its nutrition, so is that ot an animal— if nei- 
ther have any thing to eat— if a plant have no 
manure, an animal no lood, neither can groiv, 
both must perish. These are plain matter of 
tact principles that all understand. Now a new 
soil— that is, a soil just cleared of the limber, 
posse.sses a quantity of nuiriti.in from leaves 
and other substances that have decayed on its 
surlnce in the course ot time, and hence new 
land is proverbial for good crops; but it is soon 
exhausted, and then a supply becomes necessary 
Irom some other source — just as your corn crib 
or meat house requires replenishing when ex- 
hausted of iis contents, that your table maybe 
supplied. This is the plain common sense 
reason why inanure is necessary to a soil — if 
vour meat house and corn crib require a new 
supply of meat and corn v/hea their old supply 
is nealy or quite exhaushted, so does your soil 
require manure v/lieri that approaches exhaus- 
tion. 
But how does mrnure act in soil, is a ques- 
tion most frequentlj^ asked, and the answer is, 
it acts precisely as does the meat m the meat 
house, and corn in the crib. Plants eat as well 
as men. If you have no provender for your 
cattle, you do not e.xpect thenj to thrive; if you 
have but a scanty supply of poor straw, you do 
not expect your cows and oxen and horses and 
sheep to get fat on that alone; so, if y u have 
no manure of anykinito apply to your land, 
you do not expect large crops ot whe.at, or corn 
or rye. These you will say are all common 
place remark! — every body kncnv,s all this verv 
well. The object of bringing all this common 
place matter before you, is merely to lay the 
foundation, as it were ot the building. You all 
admit that lood is as necessary to plants as to 
animals. The next question is, how do they 
take it, and how appropriate it to the supply of 
their necessities'? We do not see them take it by 
the moinhiul and mas'icate it, and swallow it; 
but it tioes not lol'ow that thev do not do tnis 
because we do not see them do it. There are ;it 
th.eendsof the roots of all plants, small, ex- 
tremely small mouths through which ihiw take 
food. Those little, extremely fine hairy roots, 
have small openings by which they take from 
the soil such matter as is nutricious. This mat- 
ter is dissolved by water in the soil, and thus 
rendered fit to b? taken up by the roots ol the 
plants. That is, the nutritious principles that 
may be in tlie soil are dissolved by and com- 
bined m water. They in this medium enter 
into the .sap vessels of the plants; just as do the 
nutricious principles taken into the =tomach of 
animals, enter into the blood. In this way they 
are carried upilie plant to the leaves, where thev 
are exfiosed to the action of the atmospheric air; 
as is the blood carried to the lungs in animals 
lor the action of the air. When the sap or cir- 
culation ot tlie plant lias liaa snllicienl exp.isuie 
to the action ol the air, through the medium of 
the leaves, it commences its return downwards 
towards the roots, supplying in its xvay such 
pans ol the plant as need renovation or addition 
ol woody fibre, and when such quantity as i.s 
needed has been ttius taken by the various parts 
of the plant, the balance, if there be any, and 
that which has been rejected as innutritions, is 
voided in the form ol excrement, by Ihe roots, 
as is done by animals. 
We now come to consider the form cr nature 
ot die nutritious principles taken from theearih. 
All the differeni con.^litaeats of nutrition are in 
the soil and mixed together mechanically or 
chemically. They are dissolved and held in 
solution by water. The roots of plants absorb 
this, solution in such quantity as may be requir- 
ed by the plant, and it passes into the plant 
through the (Channels formed for the purpose 
calledsap ves.se>s, analogous to veins in animals, 
and immediately ascends to the leaves, where it 
receives the necessary .supply of carbonic acid 
gas; I suppose it receives in addition to carbo- 
nic and gas, nitrogen ; that is, that it is nitroge- 
nized as well as carbonized, just as is the blood 
of animals oxygenized, it then returns towards 
the roots, through another set ol vessels, analo- 
gous to arteries in animals, an I as before re- 
marked, supplies each part of the pi mi with the 
necessary material to restore its waste or ai 1 in 
its growth. In this process, the plant does not 
take up crude matter, charcoal or lime, or potash, 
but the elements or gases that are found in the 
sap, and that constitute these and other portions 
of the plant. This whole process is precisely 
the same as that through which the nutrition of 
men and animals is carried. Now if we apply 
common salt to a piece of ground, we must not 
understand that ihe plants growing on it will 
take up salt in sub.stance. It they take up any 
tiling at all, it will be the elements that consti- 
tute salt, or those formed by the coiiibinaiion ol 
those elements with such suitable materials as 
may be lound in the soil. And so with other 
articles. Suppose we apply potash to the soil, 
in the form of ashes or otherwise, it there be sili- 
cic acid in the soil, then silicate ol potash will 
be lound mingled in the sap of the plant, from 
which the plant will obtain that glo.s.sy coaling 
which we see on the outside of straw, cane, &c. 
If there be no silicic acid in the soil, and there 
be pota.sh there already, then it is obvious that 
silicic acid, not potash, is to be added. So with 
all other constituents of plants. It is perfectly 
i)iipossible tor a plant to take from the soil any 
organiz'sd substance.s, woody fibre, potash. &c., 
but it must take the elements of such in solution, 
and lorrn and appropriate them by means of its 
own organs, just asanimaGdo. Hogs do not 
take their pork and bristles from the corn they 
feed on, but they make them from the elementa- 
rv principles the, obtain from the corn and at- 
mosphere. VVe hear people talk of .wire .•■■oi/i; 
there can be no such thing as a sour soil, as such 
ov per se. Some vegetables grow on any and all 
soils; and if nothing else grows there, it does 
not follow that the soil is sour, but simply that 
there are none or not enough o*' the elements of 
other plants to supply their growth. For exam- 
ple, starch is composed of carbon, oxygen, and 
hydrogen; an:i .sugar is comp-.'S' d ot the same 
elements, only in .>liahtly different proportions, 
h'ow oxalic acid, (the acid of sorrel,) is com- 
posed ofcarbon and oxygen, and these elements 
must necessarily exist in all soils; add hydro- 
gen, which will certainly be supplied by rain 
water in abundance in all soil, and you will 
have the elements of starch and sugar, as well as 
those ot oxalic acid. But you may add potash 
to what is called a sour soil, or li n.e, or soda, and 
still sorrel will grow there; because each plant 
takes from Ihe soil and Ir.mi the atmosphere, 
that which it requires to constitute its substances, 
and nothing else. Yon may make the most 
perfectly rich soil that ever lav ou,t of doors, 
and pla''f soTel or the oxalic in it, and y-m 
w'lll find that they will thrive equally with all 
other plants; just as all varieties of animals, 
thrive; horses, hogs, sheep and birds, on the 
same larm, eacii one taking ihai suit ol luoU that 
suits it. The great mistake, and that which has 
causea much loss to farrceis, is the supposition 
that plants convert compound or combined sub- 
stances as such, into nutrition. The fact i.«, 
that all substances that afford food lor plants 
are reduced to their original elements in gase- 
ous or watery form, or in both, mixed. Water 
affords in itself a valuable source of nutrition 
to fdants. It contains hydrogen, and there are 
few portions of the plant that do not want hydro- 
gen; it contains o.xygen, and there is not a sin- 
gle parlor portion ol the plant, (let it be what 
plant it may,) that does not contain oxygen. 
Water is besides, in plants as well as animals, 
a solvent for the otherelements of nutrition. The 
blood in animals, cannot exist without it; or if 
it can exist, it cannot circulate to the advantag.i 
of the animal ; just so with the saps of plants, 
Vx^ater not only afib.rds as it were a vehicle lor 
the conveyance o! nutrition to the various parts 
of plants and animals, but also a considerable 
and indispensable portion of the nutrition itself. 
As an illustration ol these principles ot nutri- 
tion, a well known fact in horticulture may be 
mentioned. If the lore-part of surnmer, after the 
tree has shed its blossoms, yor ring the limb of 
an apple tree, that is, take off the bark for a 
quarterofan incharound thelimb,ne irthe trunk 
of the tree; or, which answers equally well, 
place a small wire around the limb near the 
trunk, drawing it tightly so that it shall be made 
to sink in the barii all around ; you will find the 
limb will increase in size above the ring, but not 
below it; and the Iruit, it it bear fruit, will be 
larger and ripen sooner on that limb than that 
on any of ihe others. The reason is, that 
the ring has intercepted the descent of the nutri- 
cious sap from the leaves at the top, and thus 
compelled its conversion to the growth of the 
limb and the fruit above the ring. 
The conclusions to be drawn from the princi- 
ples above laid down are obvious. 1st. Plants 
take nourishment precisely as animals do, ex- 
cept the apparatus, (the mouth) and mode of 
taking it, differ in form. Plants as well as ani- 
mals, reduce all substances that contain nutri- 
cious principles to their original elements, be- 
fore they convert any portion of them to their 
own organism. Therefore, when we apply sta- 
ble manure to soil, we do so merely to enable 
the soil and the plants to extract from it the ni- 
trogen, &c. that its ammonia, contains. The 
plants do not take up ammonia, but simply one 
of its elements, nitrogen. The elementary prin- 
.dples of the manure are all in like manner taken 
up and combined. If there be an excess of any 
one element, that excess is excluded from the 
sap; and if the sap contains an excess of any 
principle, that excess is ejected in the form of 
excrement. Indeed this paper may be appro- 
pt lately concluded xvhh the remark that fi/e is 
siippoiied by death. Dea'h must lak^ place in 
something, before anything can rec^ iv3 nutritive 
matter; because it is from the deatn and disso- 
lution ot one thing, that the nourishment ot ano- 
ther is obtained. If animals and plants do not 
die, man cannot live or be supplied with meat 
and bread; and it animals and plant* de not 
perish, plants cannot live. From the dissolu- 
tion ofone body, animal or vegetable, another body 
derives the elements of its own growth, its 
woody fibre, sugar. &c.; its flesh, bone, &e. — 
Butevery thing must be reduced to its original 
elements, belore its conslituetU principles can 
be appropriated to other forms. In lact, ail pro- 
cesses of life, in both kingdoms, animal and ve- 
getahle, and the mineral too indeed, are nothing 
more than the changing c>f places of the elements 
of organization. An animal dies, its body r/e- 
cays, as we call it. But this body does not decay. 
The elementary principles of which it is com- 
posed, merely separate, and lorm new combina- 
tions— one portion enters imo and becomes a 
portion of a plant, probably a rose or a lilly, 
probably of a skunk ; just so with a plant. A 
portion of its con.stitnent principles becomes ab- 
solutely a part and portion of the body of Q,ueen 
Victoria, or of that of a goose, or of liial of any 
other animal. But let us .*top. The idka in- 
