236 



EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



any degree of exactness, the cases given, or to recognize in his 

 applications or prescriptions, with any peculiar success, the 

 minute diversities of composition which are here presented. 



But suppose the application made, and even in the simplest 

 form ; what sagacity is acute enough to follow it in all its opera 

 tions upon the elements, either simple or compounded, with 

 which it comes in contact ? or what skill can command the 

 external circumstances of heat or cold, of drought or moisture, 

 which must at the time affect its operation ? No human skill 

 has as yet been able to compound a soil, and say, This shall be 

 more fruitful than any other. The habits and nature of different 

 plants require different conditions both of soil and of culture. 



The Royal Agricultural Society of England has recently 

 made a liberal grant to aid in the chemical analysis of the dif 

 ferent vegetable productions, under the direction of one of the 

 most able chemists of the age ; and a good deal of valuable 

 information will undoubtedly be derived from this source. The 

 chemical analysis of different manures has been carried on with 

 eminent zeal and intelligence, and is constantly going on, to the 

 great benefit, without question, of agricultural science ; but the 

 extraordinary confidence which some persons indulge in the 

 results of chemical science, in respect to agriculture, seems to me 

 a little too sanguine, and the practical application of this knowl 

 edge by no means so easy as has been supposed. 



I am quite aware that this may appear like a digression ; but, 

 in considering the subject of agricultural education, it was natural 

 to advert to that which seems now to be more prominent in the 

 minds of agriculturists than almost any thing else the advan 

 tages which agriculture is to derive from chemical science, and 

 the consequent importance of making it the prominent subject 

 of instruction. Our expectations in this matter should be in 

 some degree moderated by a remark of Liebig s : in speaking of 

 the analysis of soils, and after having given several examples, 

 &quot; It is unnecessary,&quot; he says, &quot;to describe the modus opcrandi 

 used in the analysis of these soils ; for this kind of research will 

 never be made by farmers, who must apply to the professional 

 chemists, if they wish for information in regard to the composi 

 tion of their soils.&quot; The science of chemistry has indeed now 

 become of that enlarged character, and is occupied in such pro 

 found and difficult investigations and discoveries, that excellence 



