Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 May 1885 — Number of Plants. [ARTICLE]

Number of Plants.

Man does not use more than 3,000 plants. Of these about 2,500 are cultivated in America. TJhe varieties used for food do not exceed 600. Of edible fruits and seeds there are 100 classed as vegetables, 100 as roots and bulbs, forty varieties of grain, about twenty of which produce sago and starch, and about as many sugar and syrup. In addition to this, perhaps thirty kinds will yield oil and six kinds wine. The number of medicine-supplying plants is nearly double that of tho food-yielding, amounting to 1,140, about 350 of which are employed in the various branches of industry, Gs the latter, seventy-six furnish dyestuffs, eight wax, sixteen salt, and more than forty supply food for cattle. There are no fewer than 250 kinds of poisonous plants cultivated, among which are only sixty-six cf a narcotic sort; the remainder are classed as deadly poisons.