292 Agriculture and Chemistry. 
matter as a country gentleman supposed it to be; that about 
a dozen only which deserved the name of chemical analyses 
had as yet been made in all the laboratories of Europe ; that 
the great mass of those which had been given to farmers, as 
something essential to their practice, were nearly as useless 
to them as the same quantity of blotting paper; and, finally, 
that Government might safely leave this affair to indivi- 
duals, and find fifty better ways of laying out money for the 
improvement of agriculture, than analysing all the soils of 
the country. Nothing daunted, however, the scientific agri- 
culturists of the day resolved that farmers should be taught 
to analyse soils for themselves: in England, schools were 
established for the purpose; and in Scotland the plan was 
so far matured, that it was resolved, that the teachers 
of parish schools, in addition to their multitudinous duties, 
be made to teach agricultural chemistry to the country boys. 
It seems to have been overlooked, that the persons least fitted 
to teach agricultural chemistry in the capacious laboratory 
of a village schoolroom, would probably be found to be the 
schoolmasters, and that there were some ‘such things to be 
taught in parish schools, as reading a little, writing a little, 
and casting accounts ; not to speak of a little geometry, if time 
could be found for it, &c ; that, to acquire any tolerable know- 
ledge of such a subject as chemistry, requires a pretty toler- 
able proportion of a youth’s time ; and that twenty times the 
knowledge of chemical analysis that a country youth could 
acquire, at a village school, would not enable him to analyse 
a single soil ; and, that, after all this miserable scum of 
knowledge has been thrust upon the poor boy, he should be 
no better fitted for being a farmer than before. The notion, 
in short, that agricultural chemistry was to enable us to reap 
golden crops was spread everywhere, nay, to our distressed 
colonies. The planters of one of these did me the honour 
to consult me about sending out an agricultural chemist, to 
help them to cultivate their plantations, and retrieve their — 
affairs. It would have been uncourteous to reply, by recom- 
mending them to take out an agricultural fiddler, who would 
be equally useful and more amusing. To farm scientifically, 
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