The History of Tinkering with Plants

At a recent evening program at the Springfield Town Library, David Steinberger presented a highly entertaining and educational evening, leading a journey through the history of our relationships with the plant world.

http://compasspaper.com/the-history-of-tinkering-with-plants-p2003-116.htm        The History of Tinkering with Plants            Jan Lambert             Thu, Nov 11, 2010            Program at local library reveals amazing facts            By Jan Lambert for the Compass-Nov. 11, 2010            At a recent evening program at the Springfield Town Library, presenter David Steinberger posed a question to the audience in conjunction with his illustrated talk on plants—how did mankind change from a culture characterized by nomadic tribes of hunter-gatherers to the highly urbanized world of today?            The answer has everything to do with plants. While I must admit I have seldom given that question much thought, it proved to be a highly entertaining and educational evening as Steinberger led us on a journey through the history of our relationships with the plant world. Our journey revealed some surprising bits of history.            The big change started, said Steinberger, at the time of the ice age of 18,000 years ago. At that time, Vermont and New Hampshire, along with the rest of the northern areas of the world, were under a thick layer of ice.            The cooling trend allowed the Mideast to enjoy a more temperate climate than it does today, and it was there that the grain we call wheat was first domesticated. It was probably an accidental thing. Residents of the area had gathered wild wheat grains for thousands of years, but then someone perhaps noticed that plants were coming up near their villages where plant wastes had been discarded.            In any case, the beginnings of deliberate planting of seeds by humans were something that caught on quickly and radically changed the whole course of human history. The cultivation of wheat was followed by barley, then rice in Asia, then corn in our own hemisphere.            The discovery that certain animals such as cattle could be domesticated, fed by the crops, and put to work in the fields, served to help the process along, whereby cultures ceased to wander, and developed permanent settlements.            Over the ages, of course, humans have greatly expanded their uses of plants, but the major uses seem have less to do with nutrition than we might assume.            Coffee, for instance, is the number two commodity in the world, surpassed only by petroleum (also a plant product from eons ago). Native to Ethiopia, the coffee plant is now grown on vast plantations around the world, using up vast acreages of arable land, all for a product that has no food value but on which millions of us are dependent.            The opium poppy produces a capsule containing a milky substance that can be dried and used for pain control. Steinberger told how morphine was first used in this country to help the pain of maimed soldiers of the Civil War, who subsequently became addicts. At the time, the Bayer Company marketed an over- the-counter remedy it called “Heroin,” because of its ability to rescue people from their pain.            In the eighteenth century, the British Empire was able to enslave the peoples of China by providing them with the highly addictive opium; in turn the British received vast amounts of tea and porcelain.            About the same time, Jesuit missionaries in South America learned that natives there chewed on the leaves of a certain evergreen shrub to boost their stamina. This was the beginning of the enormous cocaine industry, which today brings in great profits while endangering the health and productivity of populations around the world.            But mankind has also made great strides for human health with the help of plants. Quinine, a drug made from the bark of a tree, has helped millions recover from malaria, the number one killer disease. Another familiar remedy, aspirin, was developed from the ancient practice of chewing on certain willow barks for pain control. Taxol is a cancer remedy that comes from the bark of the Pacific Yew shrub.            Plants are also in the forefront to reduce our use of fossil fuels. Bioethanol fuels are derived from plant sugars and biodiesel fuels are produced from plant oils. Steinberger said that a more promising alternative may be the use of green algae to produce fuels.            Plants are also being used successfully to combat pollution. They have the ability to extract pollutants such as arsenic from the soil and to either convert the pollutants into less toxic compounds, or concentrate the pollutant in plant tissues so that it can disposed of safely.            Steinberger’s subject matter, the uses of plants, is vast and complicated, and absolutely vital to our survival. I came away from the program with the thought that many more people need to be engaged in the study of plants. Now that’s food for thought!            The program at the Springfield Town Library was sponsored by the Nature Museum at Grafton and the Ascutney Mountain Audubon Society, and partially funded by the Wellborn Ecology Fund of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation. Steinberger is a student intern at the Nature Museum, and he is currently majoring in environmental education at Antioch University in Keene.