Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1878-05-08
For the Freeman.
A Chat with Farmers.
No. 5.
BY AGRICOLA.

We will "chat" this time about the
chemistry of vegetation. This science has
an intimate relation to the soil we cult
vate, and the plants we rear. A perfect
plant consists of two parts, the stem and
the leaf. The flowers are only changed
leaves All plants, and all parts of plants,
contain carbon and water, and small
proportion of mineral inorganic matter
which is incombustible. The carbon is
derived from the air; the water and min
eral, from the soil. Hence, the pant we
rear has an intimate chemical relation
with the air we breathe, the water we
drink, and the soil we cultivate. The
plant breathes the air through its leaves.
rs man does through his lungs. In the
daytime these leaves give off oxygen and
absorb corbonic acid. During the night,
if the action does not cease altogether, it
is reversed. The water which fills the
vessels of the plant is principally sucked
up by the roots from the earth in which it
grows. This is wonderful process.
Through these little organs whose pores
the microscope alone can reveal, the plant
is constantly being fed, and thus vast for
ests of whole continents are built up and
sustained. 1t still more wonderful, that
while the dead matter extracted from the
sea is transformed into dead rock, the
lifeless matter of the earth and air is con-
verted, by these tiny plant builders, into
living forms, lifting their branching heads
aloft to the sky, moving in every wind
that blows, and identifying the earth with
their ever varying verdure. In the nu-
merous chemical changes constantly going
on within the substance of growing tree,
water. oxygen and hydrogen play con-
slant part. The plant bears u close rela-
ton to the soil, and AS we know the differ
ent kinds of plants are inclined to grow
upon soils which are more or less wet
more or less sandy and porous, and more
or less heavy, in the agricultural sense OF
this term. Such are the habits of plants,
and hence every variety of soil in every
climate supports its own vegetable varie-
ty. Five thousand Towering plants grow
IN central Europe. Not more than three
hundred of hese grow on peaty soils. The
rudest peasant knows that wheat and
beans affect clay soils; that rye aid the
potato are suited to the blowing sands oil
northern Germany; that the tea plant
grows best upon the warm sloping banks
of light land in China, while rice requires
the stiff wet and impervious clays. Even
the Alabama freedman is aware that dry
open alluvials and porous uplands are best
suited to the cotton pant. Any change
produced in these soils by artificial means
makes corresponding change in the kind
of plants which spring from their surface.
1t becomes the farmer, therefore. to study
the nature of the soil, and its adaptation to
certain crops, and also the specific charac-
ter of fertilizers by which the fertility of
;hc soil may be increased. The raising of
plants is the principal business of the
farmer. They are necessary for his susie
nance. The grand object in the creation
of vegetables was to serve the animal
kingdom. They serve for ornaments, for
food and for medicine.