Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 78

Growth of Plants

Growth of Plants.

All this by way of clearing the ground. Then came the pictures, and the light went out. The first slide was one representing fundamental experiments showing plants supplied with different foods, the effects on growth being very remarkable. Here began the material explanations of psychic phenomena. As Dr King said : "You cannot properly grasp the fundamental problems affecting the life and health of man unless you start somewhere near the beginning." The building up of the body of an animal was in many respects similar to the building up of a plant, and one had to be just as careful in the one case as in the other in regard to supplying the proper materials and ensuring a suitable environment, ex- page 58 cept that the higher we rose in each kingdom the more delicate, sensitive, and complex became the organisms, and the mora care we had to exercise to ensure perfect growth and development. There were certain laws that must be observed, and it was easier to see the operation of these laws on plants than in human beings, not only because plants were simpler, but because experiments could be made with more facility in the one case than in the other. One found that each genus had its special requirements without which it would not flourish. Nature determined these things, not man. Certain plants—clover, for instance—flourished, as shown in the illustration, on potash and phosphates, if water and a suitable mechanical basis of support were provided. The addition of nitrogen scarcely affected the growth. In the case of hemp, on the other hand, a nitrogen compound was essential, and until it was supplied almost no growth took place. We do not attempt to dictate the terms in a chemical experiment. Nature lays down the law and does the work: we merely assist, and stand by to see that she has fair play. So it is with all the complex processes that go on in plant's and animals. These processes are associated with complex chemical changes taking place in connection with living cells. The fundamental laws and requirements for each kind of being are pre-determincd. Human beings are no exception, and we must either conform to the fundamental laws of Nature or go under.