lx. Proceedings of the Society. 



jhould also find in Mautilius some sympathy and encourage- 

 ment. Mr. Morris insisted that one of the primal and paramount 

 elements of success in agriculture was scientific chemical and 

 analytical knowledge, and that the only means of diffusing 

 such knowledge through the mass of the population at this 

 important moment of transition, was the Establishment of an 

 Agricuiural School under the sanction of Government, in which 

 the free population could be instructed in the principles of 

 Chemico-agriculture, and thus be enabled to turn to advantage 

 i heir time and capital. In addition to this, Mr. Morris insisted 

 that a Laboratory attached to the Society was an imperative 

 necessity, and pointed out the anomalous position in which the 

 Society was placed, when being called upon for any chemical 

 analysis.it actually possessed no means wherewith to accomplish 

 so requisite a task. Vr. Mcrris brought elaborate proofs from the 

 numerous Societies already formed, and daily forming in Eng- 

 land fur the improvement of the working agriculturist.of the ne- 

 cessity of attending to his proposition ; he showed, that to recog- 

 nize the nourishments of plants and the sources whence they 

 are derived, is really the sole knowledge which renders us 

 masters of our soils and our capital, for by it we can understand 

 in what respect we have been prodigal, and in what degree we 

 have been too economical. Mr. Morris, then quoted the words 

 of Liebig to insist on the importance of analysis of soils : — 

 « That animal manures are nothing more than the ashes of the 

 nourishment produced by our fields, consumed or burnt in the 

 body of man or that of animals, and that we now know on 

 what depends the exhaustion of our land, and that in analyzing 

 the ashes of plants we determine what we should add or give 

 back to re-establish the original fertility of the soil.> 



Mr. Morris then pointed out what had been done by the Che- 

 mico Agricultural Association under the guidance of Professor 

 Johnston, by the Agricultural Society of England, by Profesor 

 Henslow, by the Academie des Sciences in Paris, and by Dumas 

 and Boussingault ; and corroborated his argument by quoting 



