Agriculture and Chemistry. 289 
bleacher, and others ; and it were hard to be believed that 
chemistry, which has improved so many arts, can not be 
without benefit to that which is employed in cultivating the 
earth for food. 
Chemists, however, it is to be regretted, set forth with 
more pretensions than their own knowledge of agriculture it- 
self justified ; and did not seem to be sufficiently aware of the 
difference between the processes of the laboratory and those 
of the field, and of the conditions and limitations under which 
conclusions from the results of the one must be applied to 
the practice of the other. They made an ample number of 
mistakes, and held out to the farmer an ample number of 
expectations, which could not be realised. The first book on 
the subject which attracted much attention in our country 
was the excellent one of Sir Humphrey Davy, which was re- 
ceived with the favour due to its illustrious author, the no- 
velty of the researches, and the importance of the subject to 
which they related. Agricultural chemistry, however, as 
it has been since called—and which means simply the 
application of chemistry to agriculture, and not a peculiar 
kind of chemistry, as if we should speak of cast-iron chemis- 
try, or calico-printing chemistry—was chiefly derived from 
Germany, where it had been received with extraordinary 
favour, and prosecuted. with great zeal, so that now there is 
_ scarcely a German university in which there is not a profes- 
sor for the purpose of teaching the application of chemistry 
to agriculture. Books and innumerable memoirs on the sub- 
_ ject have issued: from the ever-teeming press of that country ; 
and if we are compelled to say that much has not yet been 
done to make the agriculturists of Germany better farmers, 
we must admit that this has not arisen from the want of 
zeal and learning on the part of their instructors. A good 
_ many years ago, a distinguished chemist of that country, one 
* of the most distinguished indeed of his age—Dr, now, justly 
and to the honour of his sovereign, Baron Liebig—published 
eh work, which was immediately received with singular fa- 
your in this country, where most people were as ignorant of 
what had been passing on the subject elsewhere, as if it had 
been taking place in the moon. The book was read every- 
VOL. XLVII. NO. XCVI.—APRIL 1850. T 
