Transcriber's Note
The original spelling and minor inconsistenciesin the formatting have been maintained. Obvious misprints were correctedand marked-up. The original text will bedisplayed as a mouse-over pop-up.
The following words have been variably hyphenated in the original:oxy(-)cumarin, tri(-)saccharides, sugar(-)like, mono(-)saccharides,sea(-)weeds, di(-)sodium, foam(-)like, di(-)basic, aldo(-)hexoses,chromo(-)proteins, galacto(-)octose, gluco(-)octose, keto(-)hexoses,ligno(-)celluloses, manno(-)octose, para(-)pectic, di(-)saccharides,poly(-)saccharides. The variable hyphenation has been retained in thisversion.
AGRICULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL PUBLICATIONS
Charles V. Piper, Consulting Editor
THE CHEMISTRY
OF PLANT LIFE
THE CHEMISTRY
OF PLANT LIFE
BY
ROSCOE W. THATCHER, M.A., D.Agr.
Dean of the Department of Agriculture
and Director of the Agricultural Experiment Stations.
University of Minnesota
(formerly Professor of Plant Chemistry. University of Minnesota)
First Edition
Second Impression
McGRAW-HILL BOOK COMPANY, Inc.
NEW YORK: 370 SEVENTH AVENUE
LONDON: 6 & 8 BOUVERIE ST., E. C. 4
1921
Copyright 1921, BY THE
McGRAW-HILL BOOK COMPANY, Inc.
Preface
The author has had in mind a two-fold purpose in the preparationof this book. First, it is hoped that it may serve as atext or reference book for collegiate students of plant sciencewho are seeking a proper foundation upon which to build a scientificknowledge of how plants grow. The late Dr. Charles E.Bessey, to whom I owe the beginning of my interest in plant life,once said to me: "The trouble with our present knowledge ofplant science is that we have had very few chemists who knewany botany, and no botanists who knew any chemistry." Thismay have been a slightly exaggerated statement, even when itwas made, several years ago. But it indicated a very clear recognitionby this eminent student of plants of the need for a betterknowledge of the chemistry of plant cell activities as a properfoundation for a satisfactory knowledge of the course and resultsof plant protoplasmic activities. It is hoped that the presentwork may contribute something toward this desired end.
Second, the purpose of the writer will not have been fullyaccomplished unless the book shall serve also as a stimulus tofurther study in a fascinating field. Even the most casual perusalof many of its chapters cannot fail to make clear how incompleteis our present knowledge of the chemical changes by which theplant cell performs many of the processes which result in the productionof so m