28 
RECAPITULATION. 
first is the Vibrio cyanogenus , and the other Vibrio xanthogenus. I have also seen a bright 
red, from the presence of another species probably of the same genus. One or two pans 
of milk in a dairy will be affected, and all the rest escape. 
Milk becomes sour, by the change of the sugar into lactic acid. 
RECAPITULATION. 
A brief notice of the foregoing substances was necessary for various reasons. The agri¬ 
culturist should know the destination and use of those elements of the soil, the channels 
through which they pass, and the preparation they undergo before they are converted into 
products suitable for the consumption of man and animals. He should have in his mind 
a condensed scheme of the physiology of the natural products, and of the changes which 
the elements undergo in passing from their comparative inert condition in the soil, to their 
first semi-organized state in the tissues, and finally to their perfect organization in the 
bone, cartilage, membrane, muscle and brain. 
In order to reproduce the foregoing matter in a distinct and more intelligible form, 
and in conclusion of the chapter, I shall here recapitulate the most important facts and 
principles. 
1. Soil is composed of a few essential elements only; the most important, in one sense, 
the sense in which they are most necessary for animals, are in the smallest proportions. 
2. If plants have no power of selecting the elements essential to their growth, they have 
the power of distributing it to certain parts and organs. Phosphate of magnesia and 
lime exist only in small quantities in the chatf of wheat, but both are quite abundant 
in the kernel which the husk envelopes. In no case do we find the reverse of this 
fact. 
3. Every organ of a vegetable, and we may extend the remark to animals, has a reticulated 
frame work of inorganic matter, the base of which is either silex or lime. Monocoty- 
ledonous plants, particularly the cereals and grasses, have a silicious skeleton; the 
dicotyledonous have usually a lime skeleton, or a predominance of lime. This state¬ 
ment refers to the stalks, stems and leaves; while if their seeds or tubers are edible, 
their composition bears a resemblance to that of the grains. 
4. The fluids of plants and animals contain all the nutritive bodies in solution, and become 
vitalized by contact with vitalized matter. A very large proportion of the fluids cir¬ 
culating in plants is water, the solvent powers of which are increased by the presence 
of alkalies and carbonic acid. It is by the presence of these bodies in the soil, too, 
that some substances quite insoluble out of the soil, are quite soluble in it: the organic 
matter of soils is soluble in most earths, and associated with other elements, and hence 
becomes an essential class of matters forming the growth and perfection of certain 
cultivated plants. 
