230 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



tical effect upon the farm. Conductors and correspondents of 

 agricultural journals, and writers of popular works upon hus- 

 bandry, have shared to some extent in this distrust of the 

 teachings of science as applied to agriculture. 



A sharp writer in one of our most respectable agricultural 

 journals remarks, at the close of a long article upon the sub- 

 ject, that " scientific agriculture stands to-day with phrenology 

 and biology and magnetism." " No farmer," he says, " ever 

 yet received any benefit from an analysis of the soil, and it is 

 doubtful if any one ever will." The author of a very popular 

 agricultural book declares, " There is no more a chemistry of 

 agriculture than there is a chemistry of horse-flesh or a con- 

 chology of egg-shells. Chemistry may be an aid to agriculture ; 

 and so are wet weather, and a good hoe, and grub, and common 

 sense. Chemistry is an exact science, and agriculture is an 

 experimental art, and always will be, until rains stop, and bread 

 grows fully baked." 



It is evidently required of chemistry by many that it accom- 

 plish for agriculture what it has for medicine or the industrial 

 arts, or what mathematical science has for astronomy. As by 

 the laws of motion of the heavenly bodies eclipses are calculated, 

 and occultation of stars foretold with mathematical precision, so 

 chemistry must be definite, precise and practical in its teachings 

 relating to agriculture, and direct how to fertilize a field, and 

 cause two blades of grass to grow where but one grew before. 



Leaving the further consideration of this point for the 

 present, let us return to the question, " What has chemistry 

 accomplished for agriculture ?" And first, what has it taught 

 regarding the composition of, and the benefits resulting from 

 the use of, barn-yard manures ? Second, what regarding special 

 fertilizing materials ? I shall dwell more particularly upon the 

 latter inquiry, as from a somewhat extended practical expe- 

 rience in the use of many special fertilizers, especially bones, a 

 wish has been expressed to learn the results of these experi- 

 ments. 



The dark heaps of animal excrement which lie about the 

 barn-yards of farmers, have, during all ages, been known to 

 possess specific fertilizing influence upon plants ; and if it were 

 furnished in sufficient quantities to replace the elements removed 

 from soils in repeated croppings, the labors of chemists in the 



