and of the source of the nitrogen also. He showed from the
plants thus artificially nourished, and with due consideration
of the many sources of error which beset the question, that the
uncombined nitrogen of the atmosphere does not contribute to
the nutrition of plants, but that a normal increase in the
nitrogenous substances in a plant takes place when the roots
take up nitrates as well as the necessary constituents of the ash.
With the exception of some doubts which still remained
respecting the necessity of certain constituents of the ash,
such as sodium, chlorine and silicic acid, the source of the
materials which take a part in the chemistry of the nutrition of
plants was known before 1860; but the knowledge obtained
with regard to processes in the interior of the plant, the
origination of organic substances in the processes of assimilation, and the further changes which they undergo was still
fragmentary and uncertain, and led to no general and conclusive
results.
i. Cesalpino.
Aristotle had sought to determine the nature of the materials which plants take up as food, and had laid down the proposition, that the food of all organisms is not simple but composed of various substances. This view was correct, but he united with it the erroneous notion, that the food of plants is elaborated beforehand in the earth, as in a stomach, and is made applicable to purposes of growth, so as to exclude the necessity of any separation of excrements in the plant; this error was refuted by Jung, as we shall see, but nevertheless it continued to live as late as into the 18th century, and ultimately quite spoilt Du Hamel’s theory of nutrition.
Cesalpino, whom we have learnt to regard as a faithful and gifted disciple of Aristotle, directed his speculations to the mechanical rather than to the chemical side of the question, and chiefly tried to explain the movement of the nutrient sap in plants. He had a larger stock of material drawn from
