The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1896-05-20

endOIIHS Ine living substance OF the
plant to construct it's pabulum from
these simple bodies, the pabulum really
being as complex as that on which an
animal is nourished, and consisting of
almost the same substances, at any rate
of bodies which correspond very closely
to those of animal diet.
In other words both classes of organism
feed upon the same or corresponding
substances, the animal absorbing them
from the exterior in state in which
they are almost fitted to nourish it's
living substances, the plant taking them
in such condition that "a enormous
amount of preliminary constructive
work has to be expended upon them
before they are of nutritive value, this
constructive work being the formation
from the simple bodies absorbed-of
materials such as the animal absorbs
directly as it's food. The difference
between them thus becomes at the outset
one of considerable interest It is not
that the protoplasm of the animal needs
different food from that of the vegetable;
it is rather that while in both cases
chemical work has to be performed upon
the absorbed material before it can be
regarded as food in the strict sense, that
work in the case of an animal is on the
whole a breaking down of complex
bodies, but in that Of q vegetable it is
building up of simpler ones till the
same stage is reached in both cases,
namely, a material which protoplasm or
living substance can absorb into itself,
and from which it can be constructed.
But so far as the vegetable organism
is concerned, this is not by any means
the whole story. Leaving aside for the
moment the cases of such plants as
fungi, which can do nothing with the
food supply yielded to normal green
plant by the atmosphere, we find that
the conditions of life of an ordinary
green plant involve great extension of
the original constructive process. 1t
has no definite and regular meal times
at which 1t can take in a certain guam
tity of food regulated partly by the
needs of the organism, and partly by the
mysterious factor which we call appe-
tite. It's absorptive processes are much
more under the influence of natural
phenomena. the degree of light, the
amount of warmth, moisture, etc. Pc
RODS of intermisslon of irregular length
are caused by the alienation of a day
and night; in the case of perennial
plants still greater disturbances are
caused by the succession of the seasons
of the year, and the alterations these
produce in the amount of foliage which
the plant preserves; weather and it's
vicissitudes form series of disturbing
influences. We have thus the certainty
of failure to survive in the struggle for
existence unless the initial absorptive
and constructive process are supple
mented by others which in some way
shall make the organism Indifferent to
these changes and intermiSsions of sup
ply, and capable of carrying out true
nutrltive work, though the initial stages
of such work are checked or suspended.
Such secondary process involves the
whole story of what it is usual to call
reserve materials. It is evident to lis
all, from very general consideration of
the peculiarities of the vegetable king
dom, that the constructive process is
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