102 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
Theory of Vegetable Nutrition—No. 2. 
Messrs. Gaylord & Tucker —In your August No., 1840 , you 
were pleased to insert a communication as to some of the views 
entertained by me, of the “ Theory of Vegetable Nutrition.” 
Those, like the present, originated in the hope, that some per¬ 
son of scientific acquirements and of studies better suited to 
the exigency, might be induced to take up the subject, and to 
enforce the accuracy, or demonstrate the misconceptions there 
suggested. 
Physiology, or those branches of it which may be considered 
referable to agriculture, and the study of anatomy, (I would 
say, no less human than comparative,) are so closely connect¬ 
ed, that, as Haller imagined, they can hardly be separated even 
in idea. In his opinion, the man who should attempt to be¬ 
come a Physiologist without anatomy, would act as wisely as 
the mathematician, who, without seeing the wheels or the 
pinions, or without knowing the size, the proportions or 
the materials of any machine, would yet presume, from 
mere calculation, to determine its powers, its properties 
and uses. Assuredly, without it, no one is able to prosecute 
such studies, much less to impart their results to others, with 
half that pleasure or success which he otherwise might, in 
either the animal or vegetable kingdom. 
Indeed, when we view the subject in the broad aspect into 
which vital existence, animal as well as vegetable, leads us, 
and, independent of agricultural observation, the branches of 
scientific acquirements into which a development runs, a prac¬ 
tical knowledge and habit of chemical essay and demonstration, 
of experimental as well as natural philosophy, of medical sci¬ 
ence with its pathological relations to comparative anatomy, 
functions and derangements, of geology and astronomy, too, 
seem indispensable. 
Such exigencies are calculated to deter, as they unquestion¬ 
ably, in a great degree have, any other than a medical student, 
and one zealously devoted to every physiological branch, 
and its connection with his profession, from entering upon 
them. Nothing is hazarded in the assertion, that almost ex¬ 
clusively all the data from which conclusions may, with any 
safety, be drawn up to the present condition of those sciences 
and their developments, have originated from the most zeal¬ 
ous and devoted disciples of that elevated pursuit in life. 
In the natural desire, however, of arriving for myself at the 
most intelligible conclusion of which I was ca.pable,—one sug¬ 
gested by interest as well as pride, I have looked with remu¬ 
nerating gratification, into the wide field which such a study 
opens; and while I, no less than others, have felt the imposing 
diffidence attendant upon such an effort, I have been unable to 
resist the conclusion that agriculture was in need of some 
things, above which the wings of science seem recently to have 
taken and now to hold their ambitious and adventurous flight; 
soaring from nature up towards nature’s God, and firedby the 
success of our immortal Franklin, seizing upon the elements 
which surround us: which, as is evident, do blend themselves 
with vitality ; with the “ Callidum innatum” of Aristotle of 
old; which seem to maintain and uphold in unison the vital re¬ 
lations of the animal and vegetable kingdom, with its aeriform 
influences; such as the etherial and seemingly assimilated 
principles of electricity, galvanism, voltaism, magnetism, light, 
caloric and oxygen; again seeking to bring them like electricity 
down to earth, and within the grasp of genius, endeavoring to 
subject their relative connections with vitality to the alembic 
fire of chemical intelligence and essay, to decompose and hold 
them as it were in the hand to human view, as visible as they 
have recently brought to light the minute organic structure of 
animalcular formation. 
Without idiy seeking to disparage such efforts,—efforts which 
seem likely to lead to intellectual results, perhaps as beneficial 
to mankind as any that have heretofore been vouchsafed by 
Heaven to human efforts,—I would with all deference respect¬ 
fully ask leave to draw the line of demarkation between what 
is scientific, ethereal, and yet to be disclosed to us, what may 
be hoped for of things os yet unseen, and what we actually 
know and possess; and without blending the utile cum dulce in 
study, as far as my feeble intelligence may permit, to separate 
them; in order that, till the sought for things are known, we 
may be practically familiar with, and use what we do know, 
bearing in mind the adage, “while the grass is growing” to 
look to its sustenance with equal care to that which wisdom 
suggests, as to every other living thing within the range of our 
duties, nor hope for thrifty results with either but from like 
sources. 
Vegetation, in this, appears to me to be susceptible of a dis¬ 
tinct division, and for the present its better half to be at the 
same time of a familiar test for application, referable, as such 
a one ever should, if practicable, be, to the intelligence or con¬ 
ception of the most limited capacity. 
The primary, and as I conceive, the main question, under 
ordinary circumstances with the plant, is NUTRITION, or that 
artificial or alimentary contribution to the vegetable or animal 
organization, (for in my view, with either it is equally imper¬ 
ative) which the sap or the blood equally require for suste¬ 
nance, and the elaborate and assimilatory functions of its 
structure, to enable the plant to fill to the full, and ripen 
each seed according to the peculiar exigency of its farina, and 
which the agriculturist cannot unduly, and without a helping 
hand, ask of exhausted mother earth to perfect to his use. 
Although I would refer with as much kindness to the delu¬ 
sions of Tull, as Sir Humphrey Davy himself, and gratefully 
award all that is unquestionably due him for his unwearied as 
well as useful efforts and practical demonstrations of the good 
effects of tillage, the days are past or nearly so, when etherial 
aliment only, (whatever it may amount to in philosophy,) can 
be considered enough to support vegetable, any more than our 
own animal existence. . . 
In my former communication, I ventured the position, that 
the functions of vegetable life, structure and development, 
were subject to alimentary as well as medicinal principles es¬ 
sentially similar to those which govern animal or human ex¬ 
istence ; and I was the more induced to give publicity to that 
position, because occasionally I had seen influences and results 
imputed to different substances occasionally recommended for 
fertilizing the soil or promoting vegetation, little less than wi¬ 
zard or magical, and far beyond any nutrient quality I could 
suppose them inherently to possess. 
If the positions I have taken be true, there can no doubt be 
abundant proof of its accuracy found to support it. If untrue, 
there are at least enough to refute it. If true, assuredly no 
more intelligible standard can be adopted to regulate our judg¬ 
ment in agricultural appliances, than one which, mutatis mu¬ 
tandis, refers the alimentary or medicinal requisites of vegeta¬ 
ble life and functions, to our own. 
That eminent physiologist and chemist, Fourcroy. m speak¬ 
ing of the natural philosophy of vegetables, says—“ All those 
functions of vegetables which bear such striking analogy 
to those of animals, are liable to alterations by which the 
vegetable is brought to a diseased state. These diseases 
to which plants are liable, depend commonly, either on a 
superfluity or defect of sap, or the bad quality,” (I would 
say defective consistency,) “ which the sap may happen to ac¬ 
quire ; and they bear therefore, no small resemblance to those 
with which animals are affected. Their causes, symptoms and 
cure, come under the general principles of medicine. ; (no less 
than aliment) “ and form a branch of agricultural knowledge 
in which it must be confessed, little progress has yet been 
made, but which may be greatly advanced by following the di¬ 
rections of some celebrated modern writers.” I would ask of 
whom ? 
But, to support the position I have taken, let me ask, does 
the chemist in seeking his demonstrations of the component 
parts of vegetable or animal substances, through ordinary 
agents and re-agents stop to inquire whether the matter pro¬ 
posed for analysis be of the one or the other derivation ? Has 
it ever been found that the operations of chemical tests for the 
one, differed from the other? Do not results on such essays, 
conclusively demonstrate the similarity of medicinal influen¬ 
ces with both ? Do not the eccentric results of chemical con¬ 
tact with the vital energies and qualities of plants, while im¬ 
bued with vitality, equally and alike, baffle physiological and 
chemical studies and tests ? Is there any one simple substance 
found in the animal fluids that has not also and alike, been de¬ 
tected in the vegetable organization ? Are not all alike assi¬ 
milated to the peculiar properties of either by the one or the 
other organization ? 
If we see an analogy in the vital principles attendant on each 
from the fecundation of the embryo, throughout and up to its 
repetition in a successor, in the organization and develop¬ 
ment of its structure, in the instinctive impulses to nutritious 
assimilation, with an equally blind and mysterious vital ten¬ 
dency to the attainment of congenial, and the repulsion and ex¬ 
cretion of offensive matters, in the cellular formations of the 
frame, the circulation of the vital fluids and atmospheric influ¬ 
ences, (as I may hereafter show, we do) distinctly and neces¬ 
sarily the same, in the vegetable as in the animal frame— 
where, I would ask, is all the supposed embarrassment or mys¬ 
tery in administering to the wants of vegetable, any more than 
animal life ? 
Our greatest difficulty plainly lies in the fact, that our fathers, 
like ourselves, have been nurtured and educated in the 
habit of cultivating a primitive soil. The labor and expense 
attendant on the accumulation and application of manures 
with the necessity of unlearning (the most inveterate of all dif¬ 
ficulties,) old habits, and coming to that new one, which the 
necessities of our position now so audibly begin to require of 
us, as it has for ages heretofore required of nineteen-twenti¬ 
eths of all the earth besides, revolts and discourages us. And 
as it has driven us to the west, where exhaustion in its turn has 
overtaken us, still drives us to the/ar west; as it will again to 
the farther and still farther west, and till the labor and expense 
of shipment, transhipment and tolls shall find the sea-board 
exhaustion, and its necessities for manuring applications more 
profitable than far west, and primitive tillage for the sea-board, 
at these immeasurable distances. 
But let us remember, the farmer in this country owns his soil, 
and holds, with a comparatively small capital, a farm, which 
elsewhere would be called a princely estate; elsewhere, the 
land is doled off by the square yard, for the benefit of a lordly 
superior, to a humble peasant and laborer, at an annual rent 
equal to the whole per acre and fee simple price of our land. 
Not only the soil there, but every requirement and convenience 
of life is overloaded with taxations and impositions, (justly so 
termed!) to the ne plus ultra of exaction: and that alas! re¬ 
quired to glut and pamper the bare-faced knaveries, sensuali¬ 
ties, and vanities of those gilded toys for full grown children, 
called kings and nobles! Yet still, for the mere privilege of 
breathing, these rents and taxes are paid. The landlord there 
is the recipient of a great revenue; and the land taken up in a 
condition far from primitive, is manured and held at a stand¬ 
ard of fertility far above ours. How is this so ? It is because 
the only security there against loss, is in the maintenance 
through tillage and manuring of the maximum standard of fer¬ 
tility in the soil, and one here with us equal to theirs. 
It may be an unwelcome truth, but we may as well learn 
the fact, if we do not know it already, that the per acre pro¬ 
duct with them, with a more discouraging climate than that of 
the State of New-York, is far above us; and therein lies the 
ability of their tenants to pay the enormous rents and taxes un¬ 
der which they suffer; and which they pay, getting nett prices, 
little, if any greater, than we do. 
Tull, mistaken as he was, in the fancy that the plant’s exist¬ 
ence and nutriment, was like the fabled Chamelion’s aeriform, 
only insisted, in common with the prevalent opinion of the se¬ 
venteenth century, and he demonstrated clearly too “ that till¬ 
age without manure, was better than manure without tillage.” 
Evelyn insisted, and observed with no less certainty, that soils, 
of whatever standard of fertility, were very perceptibly impro¬ 
ved by mere tillage, and that aeration and atmospheric con¬ 
tact which attends it; and the more this was done, the more the 
soil improved. 
We find this conclusively shown in the effects of hoed and 
tillage crops; a consequence, the rationalia of which, independ¬ 
ent of a chemical result, which I will seek to explain on anoth¬ 
er occasion, would be best conceived and readily assented to, 
if the agriculturist would but advert to the additional and spon¬ 
taneous extension of those slender and minute roots of the 
plant, which thus are aided in their search after food, and the 
growth of which are so extended and multiplied by merely stir¬ 
ring, aerating and loosening a well constituted and loomy soil. 
If he would but advert to the no less obvious fact, that each 
of those minute roots and branches are living structures, hav¬ 
ing as strongly marked an inclination and desire (if I may so 
term their impulses,) to go, and as anxiously too, if enabled, to 
nutriment, as a hungry animal would to a hay stack—that 
nature ha| implanted in each similar tendencies, under corres¬ 
ponding facilities for locomotion. 
To prove that air and water only, (alas! that it should ever 
have been so conceived,) were “ all the aliment ” required by ve¬ 
getation, not only Tull and Evelyn, but philosophers of celebrity 
and undoubted sagacity, such as of the days and age of Tull, 
Van Helmont (the alchymist .') Boyle, Bonnot, Tillet, Duhamel, 
Braconnot, and “others of that ilk,” demonstrated, as they 
thought, such conclusions. Some of them in fact, induced the 
germination of seeds, and a sub-modo development of the em¬ 
bryo and its vital organization, with the flour of sulphur, 
washed and exhausted earth, and leaden shot, and carried 
some of their plants by dint of watchfulness, watering and la¬ 
bor, even to flowering; and all to do as is done every day with 
the bulb of the hyacinth. They thence sought to have it infer¬ 
red, nay pretended to insist they had done all that was requi¬ 
red to support their “notion.” 
But they dissembled the fact, that those flowers (as is the 
case of the hyacinth, when fed from the bulb in water only) pro¬ 
duced no seeds. That in a great majority of instances, thev 
(with seeds containing less farina or nutriment than the bulb) 
totally failed. 
But I would ask, whence should the plant have matured the 
farina of a seed? For that assuredly, is not only the primi¬ 
tive exaction of nature for the succession of the plant, but it is 
as all experience shows, the moment for calls upon and ex¬ 
haustion of the stalk and of the soil; for drafts on their stami¬ 
na; and it is distinctly when the plant must fail in maturing 
and filling the farina of its seed, if aliment in the stalk be 
wanting. It never was conceived that a plant could, any more 
than us, create a substance. They do but elaborate such as 
they obtain and can assimilate; and it is little less than folly 
to suppose they can, any more than us, give form and visible 
nutritive matter as a product of mere aeriform or gaseous ex¬ 
halation, or vapor. The latter may be quite as necessary to 
give tone and energy to their respiratory and secretional func¬ 
tions as to ours, or as the one or the other prevail, may quali¬ 
fy the assimilated product in the organization, and yet be no 
farther nutritive to the plant, than mere gas is to us. 
It will thus be perceived, that in my views of the Theory of 
Vegetable Nutrition, good tillage of a well constituted soil, in 
due rotation (or progressive exhaustion,) with the aeriiorm 
and aqueous assistance to vegetation which nature gives, con¬ 
stitutes much,—I would say, with us more than half of all that 
is required, because it leads the organism into full and healthy 
action, ana judicious manuring, assisted in such tillage by fre¬ 
quent pfiiwings, good harrowing, and plowing in green fallow 
crops,—the natural and spontaneous chemical results from the 
soil, from the atmosphere, and from manure in proper condi¬ 
tion, or due progress towards their ultimate decomposition, 
proper medicinal, or calcareous correctives to pernicious acid¬ 
ity, when it is found to prevail, and the seasonable blessing of 
an ever bounteous Providence, are all the residue. 
Leaving to a future occasion, the modus in quo of obtaining, 
and the rationalia of applying that manure, let me conclude 
this topic by an allusion or two to the recent applications of 
electric effects to vegetation. 
Tull, even in his early and benighted day, saw, and alludes 
to its influence on wheat; DeCandolle and Sprengel acknow¬ 
ledge its effects on buckwheat; and recently, confining its in¬ 
fluence artificially in contact with oxygen, or attracting it to 
the vital energies of plants, and to the acceleration of embri- 
otic development, physiologists and chemists have shown it 
greatly to hasten these results. This no doubt, is so; but what 
do these experiments and effects, unquestionably beautiful, 
highly intellectual in their exhibition, show? Nothing practi¬ 
cally useful to the plain agriculturist, or any thing more than 
mere nitrogen gas, in its administration for catch-penny exhi¬ 
bition to human beings, long since has shown; or more than al¬ 
cohol at this day deplorably shows, super-excitation of vitali¬ 
ty; mere intoxication, (if I may be allowed the expression.) 
But in its effects, what? Blight in the wheat, undue increase 
of straw; as a necessary consequence, exhausting diminution 
of the farina, and in the number of seeds of the buckwheat; 
cresses and embriotic vitality unduly, and prematurely hasten¬ 
ed by super-excitation and stimuli—“ coming into this breath¬ 
ing world scarce half made up, and that so lame and unfash¬ 
ionable, that” a sterile curiosity only is the consequence— 
rieketty, short-lived and worthless of course. 
When the dazzle of such novelty shall have passed away, it 
will be seen that the organic structure of plants can no more 
thus be super-excited and sported with than our own. I 
would say nothing against such exhibitions or studies as con¬ 
nected with the elementary principles of vitality, from which 
much usefulness may, probably will, be elicited. But when 
the results to which these researches evidently tend, are at¬ 
tained; that of showing if not the identity, at least the intimate 
connection of electricity, light, caloric and oxygen, the one 
with the other, and of each with vital functions, it will be found 
that their influence on vegetation, is no farther applicable 
there, than to ourselves. 
The plant being, like ourselves, an organic circle for vital 
action, equally dependant for health on the natural tempera¬ 
ture, equilibrium and play of its frame, when driven from that 
equipoise by stimuli, which every day’s experience shows, may 
be produced with either, not only through the false mediums 
to which I have adverted, but in the plant, even through the 
injudicious application of unfermented manure itself, wastes 
under super-excitement, as we would ourselves, its vital en¬ 
ergies, and relative exhaustion and sterility with it as with us, 
is a necessary consequence. 
In the medical treatment of human beings, electricity is used 
to raise a sluggish action of the system to its natural pitch— 
never beyond it. 
The great and inviting reward which nature ever holds up to 
the zealous inquiries and ambition of her votaries, is her uni¬ 
formity, from which she never varies; and that characteristic 
will be found beautifully interwoven with, and illustrated by 
the analogies of vegetable to animal existence. A principle 
once attained and well conceived with either, may be viewed 
as an end of the thread of a mysterious ball, fearlessly taken 
up, and cacterus paribus, drawn out through all its applications 
as appurtenant to both, and with the assurance, if not so, it is 
probably not well founded, when they seem to differ, the at¬ 
tempt at least should be made to point to the fact, and seek 
the solution of a divergence from the common principles of 
their vitality. 
As at every step which Newton took towards the develop¬ 
ment of that stupendous mechanism which he brought to the 
light of an admiring world, he became confirmed in his belief 
in the existence of the Deity and strengthened in those hopes 
in the future, without which even his existence here would have 
been a blot; so in the study of those principles of vitality into 
which for our purpose, the analogies of animal and vegetable 
existence lead us, will he find as our reward the most irre¬ 
fragable proofs in physiology and its attendant sciences, of that 
most consolatory of all earthly reflections. 
The organic formation of plants, animals and human beings, 
equally forbid the idea of a chance or sponte nascential vital 
production, or the offspring of either from mere natural influ- 
6HC6S. 
If we could suppose a plant or an animal in its origin, as a 
self-constituted existence, we must suppose simultaneously 
the existence of other plants or animals, or of necessity it 
must have perished for want of sustenance. Because, through 
all nature, nothing can be found nutritive to vital existence 
but matter, of previous vital formation, or, in other words, of a 
material which the organism may assimilate. The earth, there¬ 
fore. before vitality was created, could offer, as geological for¬ 
mations anterior to organic depositions show it did, in its pre¬ 
vious materials, nothing alimentary. 
In the case of the plant, we must suppose its precursors to 
have matured, and to have been already in a state oi decay, and 
solution for aliment, or without provision from some indepen¬ 
dent quarter for sustenance, the first plant must have perished. 
If we suppose a male, or a female in either plant or animal, 
neither singly will answer the end, or any thing short of a si¬ 
multaneous production of each, or that at least within the pe¬ 
riod of their mutual existence; and yet again, in their sexual 
conformation to one another. 
In the ease of the plant, or of an animal, we must pre-sup - 
pose the seed and the parents, the product m either case, of a. 
male and female pre-existing, or we are driven to suppose di¬ 
vine intervention and omniscience to have produced them of 
mature age, and provided for their sustenance till increase had 
resulted to supply the place of such provision. 
I ask of any rational man, would he in a case involving the 
life of a fellow creature, decide against him on conclusions 
less irresistible ? If he would, should his sympathies award 
against suffering humanity, an alternative he denies to his 
Creator? . , 
But there are of plants, probably 40,000 species; and as 
many more of animals, without adverting to the myriads of 
animalculse invisible to the naked eye; each necessarily as se¬ 
parate a creation, and as incapable of divergence from its spe¬ 
cies as man himself. 
Although varieties, by fusion or by crossing of a species, may 
be multiplied, genera are independent, and never can. Hybrids, 
animal or vegetable, if by any chance or artifice, produced, are 
by nature and of an unnatural composition and organization ne¬ 
cessarily defective, and ever have been without exception, bar¬ 
ren and unproductive. ... . . 
The vital creation of plants and animals shown in fossil in¬ 
terments, was therefore evidently simultaneous and anterior to 
the present or Biblical creation; and all exhibit (at this day, 
man included) as at the former creation, with an independent 
and distinctly separate being, a oependance each on the other, 
as a law of their nature, and of their existence for sustenance. 
In the embryo, its development and thence to its maturity 
and death, the plant as well as the human and animal cellular 
formations and fluids maintain for assimilation a rigid simili- 
