664 ANNUAL REl^ORT OF THE Off. DoC. 



AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY IN THE NINE- 



TKENTH CENTURY. 



BV DK. WILLIAM PREAR, SUite College, Pa. 



Ml'. President and Members of the State Boai'd of Agriculture: 



lustead of makiug at this time a presentation of facts or discus- 

 sion of principles concerning some particular point in the domain of 

 agricultural chemistry, as has been the usual practice on these oc- 

 casions, it has occurred to me that at this opening of the new cen- 

 tury, it might be of greater interest to briefly sketch the progress of 

 agricultural chemistry during the century that has just closed. 



The arts of metallurgy, potter}-, glass-making, the manufacture of 

 alcohol and of soaps hud attained such development that, in a sense, 

 man regarded himself as master of the elements, material and physi- 

 cal, as a result of whose operation, the several products of these 

 arts were made. Biit no such conception of his relation to the pro- 

 ductive forces of plants and animals occurred to the loftiest-minded 

 agriculturist; his was the simpler, though possibly no less difficult, 

 relation of the humble aid to natural forces; he planted the seed after 

 such soil preparation as ages of experience had shown to be desira- 

 ble for reasons yet undiscovered, awaited the action of the sun and 

 the rain and the awakened energies of the plant and, at harvest time 

 gathered into his garners such product as their beneficent action 

 afforded. In tuin, his vegetable products were fed to the domes- 

 tic animals and this feeding, among the more intelligent farmers, was 

 guided by certain crude rules that had grown out of experience, but 

 that had no common tie of underlying reason. To-day, the attitude 

 of the farmer, though possibly no less humble in spirit, is enlivened 

 by a new sense of mastery over the forces and materials with which 

 he works; so that though in a much less complete measure, he may, 

 like the metallurgist, pro})erly be regarded as a manufacturer in 

 whose laboratories the plants and animals, skilled assistants en- 

 dowed with particular powers and selected and trained by his in- 

 telligence, convert the materials which he furnishes in his soils and 

 fertilizers by the aid of physical force, which the farmer more largely 

 than ever controls, into specific products. That is, the farmer has 

 attained by this time to a degree of controlling influence over the 

 elements and results of his operations which a century ago he did 

 not dream of reaching. 



