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So complex is the ftudy of Agriculture, that it 

 involves a multiplicity of objedts of the moft ab- 

 ftrufe and recondite nature, which never can be 

 thoroughly underftood without a previous know- 

 ledge of many other arts, and particularly of Che- 

 miftry. And yet this important fcience has been 

 uniformly committed to the fole management of 

 the illiterate part of mankind. Thefe being un- 

 able to learn, for want of perfons qualified to teach, 

 have obftinately purfued a routine of random prac- 

 tice, in imitation of their forefathers, without any 

 fettled principles. Innumerable errors have thus 

 been tranfmitted from one generation to another, 

 under the fallacious appearance of being the refult 

 of long experience. Can we wonder then that the 

 theory and pradice of agriculture are yet far, very 

 far, from having reached the fummit of perfe6tion? 

 Chemiftry indeed has not till of late years been 

 applied to agriculture and the ceconomical arts, 

 though the principal operations of each evidently 

 depend on chemical principles. 



It is not to be expeded that every hufbandman 

 flipuld be a profound chemift; but I will venture 

 to fay, that every gentleman who wifhes to im- 

 prove his eftate, and to advance the art of agricul- 

 ture, ought to be well verfed, at leaf!:, in the prin- 

 ciples of philofophical chemiftry; without which 



he 



