Ser Humphry Davy. 227 
from the dignity of science, is perhaps the hardest lesson for humil-. 
ity to teach.” But there is no loss of dignity in the performance of 
any duties that are necessary to the promotion of the happiness “of 
our fellow men. To do good is a work of inherent dignity. 
The principal objects which our author proposed to himself were,. 
first, to ascertain the food of -plants, and hence to learn the best 
method of supplying it ; secondly, to investigate the nature of differ- 
ent sotls, and thus to detect the latent causes of productiveness or ste+: 
rility, with the view of promoting the one and applying the’ proper! 
remedy to the other; and, thirdly, to examine the nature of manures, 
for the purpose of augmenting their fertilizing powers, preventing’ 
their waste, and multiplying their number and variety. We regard. 
his efforts as having been by far the most successful on the last point. 
Inquiries respecting the food of plants, connected as they ate with 
the functions of living vegetables, belong rather to physiology than to’ 
chemistry ; the method of deciding on the qualities of a soil, from the 
knowledge of its constituent principles, ‘is too refined for the simple 
art of husbandry ; but since manures undergo various chemiéal chan~ 
ges, and owe their peculiar properties to these changes, they present 
inquiries which are strictly chemical, and which none but the chemist 
can satisfactorily answer. Had Davy, by his agricultural inquiries, 
ascertained nothing more than that the most fertilizing portions of 
many of the best manures, are likewise the most volatile, and had he: 
done nothmg more than furnish the rules which-he established to 
prevent the waste of these portions, he would have conferred ‘a ben= 
efit upon agriculture of the greatest’ importance. Although treatisés 
had previously been written with the view of reducing severab 
branches of husbandry to a science, yet the Agricultural Chemis 
uy of Sir Humphry Davy, was the first, and continues tobe the 
last work, that presents to the agriculturist, a digested code of laws 
Constituting the scientific principles of his art. Many of the mem- 
bers of the Board. of Agriculture, were practically acquainted with 
farming ; and the high authority conceded to this work, not only by 
them but by all enlightened agriculturists, is a sufficient proof of the 
soundness of its doctrines, and its freedom from all visionary hypoth- 
€ses, incompatible with experience. Considering that, when he com-: 
menced this course of lectures he was only twenty two years of age, 
aid. had not bapa beed on the farraybout had spent his life chiefly with 
fiscal 
its he adapted — to a of the practical agriculturist ; 
