SECRETARY'S REPORT. 253 



man to consider, which have either never been sufficiently promi- 

 nently presented to his view, or which from their being less striking, 

 or perhaps less enticing, have been allowed to fall into tlie back 

 ground, and have hence led to a certain amount of misapprehension 

 in regard to the exact position of science and its relations to prac- 

 tice. Such misapprehension it is highly desirable to dispel. The 

 farmer and the chemist should come to a distinct understanding 

 with regard to the mutual bearings of scientific and practical agri- 

 culture — the manner in which they may be made to assist one another 

 — and, what is of all others the most important point, how they can 

 be made to co-operate, so as to establish on a firm basis the gen- 

 eral principles of agricultural science, which must necessarily be 

 the first step towards the development of a scientific practice. 

 Under these circumstances, I have thought that I might advantage- 

 ously refer very shortly to some of these matters, and point out 

 what we are in future to expect from the application of chemistry 

 to agriculture, the more especially as it is not very difficult to per- 

 ceive that the interest which attached to it has somewhat abated 

 with the general public, though I believe it to be undiminished 

 with our most active and intelligent practical men. 



This very diminution in the interest attaching to chemical agri- 

 culture, I believe to be mainly founded on one of the most serious 

 misapprehensions — serious alike to agriculture and to chemistry — 

 with which we have now to contend ; and that is the erroneous 

 and altogether extravagant expectations which some persons enter- 

 tain, regarding the extent and rapidity of the infiucnce which 

 chemistry is likely to exert upon agriculture. To hear them talk 

 of it, one might almost imagine that chemistrj^, as by the wand of 

 a magician, is at once to spread fertility over our barren moors and 

 raise abundant crops where nothing ever grew before ; and that 

 the chemist can by a few simple experiments, determine v»Mth abso- 

 lute precision, the circumstances under which the farmer must go 

 to work so as to produce an abundant crop. It needs not to be 

 mentioned that such views are the exception, not the rule ; but 

 between this extreme case and those likely to be fulfilled, there are 

 many expectations which, with less apparent extravagance, are 

 equally beyond the powers of chemistry in its present imperfect 

 state, and involve questions which, if they ever can be answered, 

 must await the advance of pure science to a point much beyond 

 that to which it has yet attained. Nor is it, pei'haps, matter of 

 much surprise that such expectations should have been entertained, 

 as it must be admitted that the general public is not in a position 

 to estimate correctly the extent of the benefits which it is likelj'^ to 

 derive from the application of science to any art ; and unfortunately 

 in the present instance, it has been misled by the far too laudatory 

 terms in which the application of chemistry to agriculture were 

 talked of some years ago. Hopes were then excited, which to those 

 intimately acquainted with chemistry, it was very evident could 

 not be sustained, but which the enthusiastic embraced at once ; 

 only, however, when they were disappointed, to abandon as worth- 

 less, the whole science itself, along with the unobtrusive modicum 



