294 Agriculture and Chemistry. 
gravy as possible. It had been discovered that the fat is in 
the grass before it is in the goose that eats it, and straightway 
the Baron discovered what precise part of our turnips and 
potatoes goes to form the fat, what the flesh, and what the 
other multifarious products of the stomach. But let not our 
cooks lose heart ; they will beat Baron Liebig to nothing in 
preparing a comfortable dinner for us, which, after all, is 
rather an important part of the affair. And let our farmers 
in like manner be comforted. They are very good chemists, 
if they would but think so, and perform every day, in their 
fields, better chemical operations by far than all the agricul- 
tural chemists can perform for them. 
This somewhat excessive zeal, however, has really had use- 
ful results. It has directed the attention of many country 
gentlemen to agriculture, as a liberal as well as a useful pur- 
suit, and induced them to pay increased attention to the im- 
provement of their estates. It is the chemists only who are 
to blame, for having addressed themselves to farmers in a 
more authoritative manner than their own knowledge of the 
subject warranted; and for having held forth expectations 
which could not be realised in the manner which their boast- 
ing had led the people to expect ; the effect of which has been 
to give practical farmers a distaste for what is called agri- 
cultural chemistry, and to retard, rather than promote the 
beneficial application of the discoveries of science to the prac- 
tice of the farm. But amore serious offence of theirs re- 
mains to be noticed, which is, the holding out to the farmers 
of the country this agricultural chemistry as a means of sup- 
porting them in their present adversity, and enabling them 
to surmount the difficulties in which they are involved. We 
have seen how ready politicians, struggling against their own 
growing convictions, and anxious to justify their past pro- 
ceedings, are to catch up this cry of agricultural chemistry, 
and to tell the farmers of the country what science has done 
for them and what it is likely todo. What true science is 
likely to do, we do not know; but what agricultural chemis- 
try has yet done we do know, and thus can appreciate it, as 
a means of enabling the farmers of this country to bear up 
under the evils under which they suffer, and the dangers which 
menace them. 
