194 BOARD OF AGRICULTUEE. 



that we do know how plants feed better than our fathers did ; 

 that we have learned what elements in the soil are worth 

 nothing and what are valuable. Capt. Moore would buy- 

 phosphates and lime and potash, because he knows they will 

 make plants grow. How came he to know it? Because 

 chemists have analyzed plants, manures and soils, and found 

 them there. He does not doubt it. He will not dispute it. 

 "What he means to say, and what Mr. Ward has said is, that 

 we cannot always tell by the analysis of a given substance 

 just what its effect will be on plants. That I will admit. I 

 will admit that if I took a substance to a young man who had 

 been in a laborator}^, but never had been on a farm, and had 

 no idea of the relations of manures with plants, and I was 

 simply told by him what elements were in it, I should not get 

 the information I wanted ; but I believe that an experienced 

 organic chemist like Dr. Goessmann, if you will take to him 

 any manure you please, will tell 3'ou what its value is to the 

 jjlant ; will tell you what is soluljle, what decomposaljle by 

 the process of decay, what can be taken as plant- food, what 

 will operate to make these insoluble granitic particles valu- 

 able, and tell you the Avhole story from beginning to end, and 

 no man shall gainsay one word he says. 



Now this is a very important point, that you, gentlemen, 

 should believe in science ; for if you do not, we had better 

 " hang up our fiddle and bow," and go into some other busi- 

 ness. If you cannot believe in the deductions of science, if 

 there is no way to get at knowledge that we can stand on and 

 swear by, then it is a hard case for us. I should rather be 

 in some other business than trying to teach agriculture or 

 trying to enlighten farmers, because it would seem we are 

 never going to get beyond the mere point of opinion, and this 

 everlasting flood of talk. 



The point I wish to make is, that there are substances 

 which have a value greater than the chemist can find in the 

 analysis, if he is only to ascertain how much of each element 

 may be in it. But any intelhgent chemist, competent to 

 make an analysis of a compound fertilizer, will not be satis- 

 fied with showing what the elementary constituents are. He 

 will consider the whole thing ; what organic matter is found, 

 what its character is, what will be its action when we let it 



