2o8 plant and organic chemistry 
study of new plants, but in the study of old plants it is to be 
encouraged; for each new investigation of many well-known 
plants has revealed new chemical principles, and given ad¬ 
ditional knowledge of the old ones. We can never know to 
what practical uses the constituents of any plants may be 
brought, and the money value of this information should be 
considered. 
Many chemical compounds which are of the most practi¬ 
cal use, now made by synthesis, were first discovered in plants, 
products of living matter. 
Synthetical chemistry has derived its knowledge from the 
results of analytical study. Researches in plant analysis have 
revealed many facts, though the exploration field is still 
wide. 
In our present state of knowledge, plant chemistry is a safe 
political ground for either the Protectionist or Free-Trader. 
The vegetable cell has placed the tariff of human penetration 
so high, and protected so well its industry, that the plant en¬ 
joys the monopoly of proteids and a magazine of other sub¬ 
stances. The Free-Trader may console himself, for if he is 
intelligent enough he can find out the processes, and start 
his own factory, duty free. 
Professor Cohn, of Breslau, tells us that it is only a question 
of time when we may hope for the chemist to succeed in doing 
what the simplest Algae and mosses are able to do, namely, 
to produce starch from carbonic acid and water. On that day 
the bread problem, which is in fact the greatest of all social 
problems, will be solved. 
It is indeed true that those organic compounds which are 
of the most importance in the life of the plant, the hydro¬ 
carbons and the albuminoids, are those which as yet have 
not permitted the secrets of their production to be discovered. 
In the future, when synthesis has accomplished this pro¬ 
phecy, and the synthetical chemist reigns supreme, our coming 
race, to my imagination, will be chemists, and our farmers 
will manufacture our food supply of proteids, sugars, and 
starch. The surface of the land will be one huge teeming 
laboratory. The plants, the analytical chemist, and others of 
