Natural product

“ Virtually everything they ate was produced by themselves. If they were an agricultural people, naturally, everything they ate was natural: organic, whole, unsprayed and fertilized with what ever local materials seemed to produce enhanced plant growth. ”

“ Those which we will consider first are the [Pg 210] products of organic nature, which have been dwelt upon by a well-known writer as showing us the ultimate source of industrial interest generally, and also at the same time its natural and essential justice. ”

“ The fundamental species, a poor resource in their original state, we borrowed as they were from the natural treasury of the vegetable world; the perfected race, rich in alimentary materials, is the result of our art. ”

“ His wild notions about the way in which natural causes acted in the production of plants and animals, must not make us forget the merit of his intuition that animals and plants were produced by natural causes. ”

“ Lastly, we must particularly recommend and suggest, that man’s present industry in the investigation and compilation of natural history be entirely changed, and directed to the reverse of the present system. For it has hitherto been active and curious in noting the variety of things, and explaining the accurate differences of animals, vegetables, and minerals, most of which are the mere sport of nature, rather than of any real utility as concerns the sciences. ”

“ Consumption of food is a natural effect of the natural necessity for food—a natural law. Production of food is a natural effect of the natural need of food for consumption—a natural law. Resort to Natural Resources as the sole source and foundation from and upon which to produce food is a natural effect caused by the natural need for food—a natural law. ”

“ If it is once allowed, that the productions of Nature follow in an uniform order, and advance by imperceptible degrees and links, we shall have no difficulty in conceiving there are organic bodies existing, which belong neither to animals, vegetables, nor minerals. ”

“ In seeking to multiply the precious metals, also, we seek but to germinate and multiply, by natural means, a particular species of nature’s productions; and what else does the husbandman, who consults times and seasons, and, by what might be deemed a natural magic, from the mere scattering of his hand, covers a whole plain with golden vegetation? ”

“ I shall not labour to prove how delightful and instructive it is to
"Look through Nature up to Nature's God."
Neither, surely, need I demonstrate, that if any judicious or improved use is to be made of the natural bodies around us, it must be expected from those who discriminate their kinds and study their properties. Of the benefits of natural science in the improvement of many arts, no one doubts. Our food, our physic, our luxuries are improved by it. By the enquiries of the curious new acquisitions are made in remote countries, and our resources of various kinds are augmented. ”

“ The principles above explained, therefore, shew that the value of any vegetable production, considered as the sole food of an animal, is not to be judged of—cannot, in short, be accurately determined—by the amount it may contain of any one of those substances, all of which together are necessary to build up the growing body of the young animal, and to repair the natural waste of such as have attained to their fullest size. ”

“ The history of the animal and vegetable productions of the globe, as affording objects and materials for the convenience and use of man, and as dependent on and indicative of the general laws which determine the distribution of heat, moisture, and other natural agents, over its surface, and the revolutions it has undergone, are of course intimately connected with our subject, and will, therefore, naturally afford room for some remarks,344 but not such as will long detain the reader’s attention. ”

“ With cultivated attainments for the discernment of cause and effect, she had with the dependent emergency of her people upon a continued supply of vegetable products become a practical botanist, capable of tracing at sight the natural life-sustaining affinities of fruits and roots, although ignorant of their technical classification into generas, orders, and species. ”

“ Neither can I perceive that any of the Elements is produced by seed, unless Fire, which seems, to my sense and reason, to encrease numerously by its seed, but not any other of the Elements. And thus productions are almost as various as Creatures, or rather parts of Creatures, are; for we see how many productions there are in one animal body, as the production of flesh, bones, marrow, brains, gristles, veines, sinews, blood, and the like, and all this comes from Food, and Food from some other Creatures, but all have their original from the onely matter, and the various motions of Nature. ”

“ And the chemists’ triumphs of synthesis, which could now give us an entirely artificial food, remain largely in abeyance because it is so much more pleasant and interesting to eat natural produce and to grow such things upon the soil. ”

“ My learned friend used to bring garden seeds and eggs of rare poultry, and received in exchange curious insects and dried plants, which he sold to natural history collections and foreign museums, and made a good profit out of them, for science is not only a passion but a means of sustenance. ”

“ Though less capable than most other animals of living on the herbs and the fruits that unaided nature supplies, this wonderful faculty taught him to govern and direct nature to his own benefit, and make her produce food for him, when and where he pleased. ”

“ Now, herbaceous and all other green plants stand alone among terrestrial natural bodies, in so far as, under the influence of light, they possess the power to build up, out of the carbonic acid gas in the atmosphere, water and certain nitrogenous and mineral salts, those substances which in the animal organism are utilised as work-stuff. They are the chief and, for practical purposes, the sole producers of that vital capital which we have seen to be the necessary antecedent of every act of labour. ”

“ Every mechanical artifice, every chemically pure substance employed in manufacture, every abnormally fertile race of plants, or rapidly growing and fattening breed of animals, is a part of the new Nature created by science. ”

“ Can it be thought, that certain forms of the body, as those of quadrupeds and birds, requisite for the perfection of sensation, would cost nature more organic particles than the production of less important animals?
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Let us now pass to the comparison of animals and vegetables, with respect to situation, form, and size. The earth is the only place wherein vegetables can subsist. The greatest number grow above the surface, and are attached to the soil by roots. ”

“ It is a something in the life and in its varied method or law of operation which constitutes the actual difference between the inorganic and organic, between the vegetable and animal, and, most of all, between the merely animal and man. Creative Life is always intelligently operating according to a definite plan and fixed laws ”

“ It is strange and startling, but nevertheless perfectly true, that even at the present time there are many excellent and abundant productions of nature with which not only our manufacturers, but, in some instances, even our men of science, are wholly unacquainted. ”

“ Having now occupied several letters with the attempt to unravel, by means of chemistry, some of the most curious functions of the animal body, and, as I hope, made clear to you the distinctions between the two kinds of constituent elements in food, and the purposes they severally subserve in sustaining life, let me now direct your attention to a scarcely less interesting and equally important subject—the means of obtaining from a given surface of the earth the largest amount of produce adapted to the food of man and animals.
Agriculture is both a science and an art. ”

“ If we consider the economy of nature, with regard to animal and vegetable life, we may observe that, in order, probably, to keep up the different species of living creatures and plants, the seed produced of both kinds is very abundant ”

“ Thus the earth produces plants, the earth and plants make animals, and of the earth, plants, and animals, are formed men; for the qualities of vegetables, proceed immediately from the soil and air; the temperament and other relative qualities of animals which feed on herbs, have a close affinity to the particular kinds they use, and the physical qualities of men, and other animals which subsist on flesh, as well as on vegetables, depend, though more remotely, on the same causes, whose influence extends even to disposition and manners. ”

“ A facetious, philosophical, friend of mine, lately amused me with some remarks, on the nature and properties of different kinds of food. "We know," said he, "that one herb produces this effect, and another that; that different species and varieties of plants have different virtues; and, why may we not infer that the same rule extends to animated nature; that our fish, flesh, and fowl, not only serve as nutriment, but that each kind possesses peculiar and individual properties." ”

“ In other words, the products of industry are constantly taking the place of those of Nature more and more. In all these cases, these instances of composition of odorous principles are among the finest triumphs of organic chemistry. The creative power of the chemist is ever widening its range. ”

“ Multitudes of these, having diverse tendencies, are competing with one another for opportunity to exist and multiply; and the organism, as a whole, is as much the product of the molecules which are victorious as the Fauna, or Flora, of a country is the product of the victorious organic beings in it. ”

“ In addition, these rich tracts of land produce raw materials for building and other uses and are an essential source of food and medicines derived from trees, shrubs, forbs, fungi, and micro-organisms. ”

“ All that the materialists can claim respecting man's agency in the production of life is, that he may take advantage of the uniform laws of nature, so far as they are known to him, planting seeds here, changing chemical conditions there, using different infusions in his experimental flasks,--organic or inorganic, as he may choose--and then await the action of these uniform laws. ”

“ The knowledge of the composition of soils, of the food of vegetables, of the modes in which their products must be treated, so as to become fit for the nourishment of animals, is essential to the cultivator of land; and his exertions are profitable and useful to society, in proportion as he is more of a chemical professor. ”

“ The Past Condition of Organic Nature In the lecture which I delivered last Monday evening, I endeavoured to sketch in a very brief manner, but as well as the time at my disposal would permit, the present condition of organic nature, meaning by that large title simply an indication of the great, broad, and general principles which are to be discovered by those who look attentively at the phenomena of organic nature as at present displayed. ”

“ It is the organic world together, to be sure, that is able to subsist on the fourteen elements as these are given by the earth, the animal kingdom obtaining most of its material at second hand, as elaborated by the vegetable. ”

“ yet, they can show that any existing species—animal or vegetable—when placed under conditions different from its previous ones, immediately begins to undergo certain changes fitting it for the new conditions. They can show that in successive generations these changes continue; until, ultimately, the new conditions become the natural ones. They can show that in cultivated plants, in domesticated animals, and in the several races of men, such alterations have taken place. ”

“ The future race, let us admit, may eventually be able, by means of an almost unthinkable development of food, clothing, building and medical supplies of a synthetic or semi-synthetic nature, to dispense with some of the agriculture we know. ”

“ Plants live on purely inorganic substances, such as water, carbonic acid and ammonia, and they have the power of making out of these true organic substances, such as starch, cellulose, sugar, etc. Plants, therefore, take as food very simple bodies, and manufacture them into more complex substances, so that plants are the great producers in nature. ”

“ There are the arts of the food supply, such as hunting, fishing, agriculture, food preservation and eventually food production by synthetic chemistry in the broader classifications, of house building, of useful clothing, of hygiene, etc. ”

“ Food takes a mid-place, and then come the organic conditions; by which I mean the conditions which depend upon the state of the rest of the organic creation, upon the number and kind of living beings, with which an animal is surrounded. You may class these under two heads: there are organic beings, which operate as 'opponents', and there are organic beings which operate as 'helpers' to any given organic creature. ”

“ Here are the elements for every cereal, vegetable and fruit, and for every textile material that grows in the same latitude and altitude in any part of the world. No country in the world will yield more and a greater variety of the products of life than will portions of this mountain country. ”

“ The inseparable duties of studying the composition of the various animal and vegetable fabrics, as also their nature—when in contact with the various mineral, vegetable, animal, and gaseous bodies applied in the individual industries—should not devolve upon the heads, chemists, or managers of firms alone. ”

“ There are no two productions of nature, whether animal, vegetable or mineral, that are exactly alike, and all are crowned with a degree of polish and perfection that cannot be obtained by ignorant man in his most exquisite mechanical productions. ”

“ Organic Materials—embracing whatever is practically interesting in all vegetable and animal substances used in manufacturing, having in view their sources, culture, collection, commercial importance and qualities as connected with manufacturing. This department presents a vast field of immense importance to every merchant and importer of raw material. ”