STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 117 



very deep fears that our Ag. College will not accomplish the 

 mission to which it is devoted. ... I hope you in Connecticut 

 will accomplish something in the right direction. 



Professor Johnson's contributions to the Country 

 Gentleman during 1857 were chiefly translations and 

 adaptations from foreign journals and, while signed, 

 were more or less editorial in character. They were 

 designed to give their readers the results of the best 

 European thought on agricultural matters. In his 

 preface to a translation of some of Boussingault's 

 researches, he makes the following plea for the train- 

 ing of research workers in agricultural science in this 

 country : 



I have thought a perusal of these researches by Boussin- 

 gault, a man whose devotion of wealth, genius, and life to 

 the study of agricultural chemistry and physiology has greatly 

 enriched the science and the art of husbandry, would be of 

 interest for several reasons. In the first place, they illus- 

 trate the method by which we are to arrive at a knowledge of 

 the conditions of vegetable growth, and the influence of fer- 

 tilizers, or of other circumstances, on the development of 

 plants. Again they reveal some new truths in a broader and 

 fuller light, and in this respect form a valuable contribution 

 to agricultural science. Finally, they may serve to excite the 

 reader to a more extended study of the subject of vegetable 

 nutrition, a subject which lies at the foundation of agricul- 

 tural production. 



Twenty years ago, nobody, neither farmer nor philosopher, 

 knew what was the function or value of ammonia, or of nitric 

 acid, or of the phosphates, as aids to vegetable production. 

 Now, we do know that these bodies are all indispensable to 

 the growth of plants, and we are able to comprehend, in some 

 good degree, the reasons of their value. It is to investigations 

 of the kind that have just been laid before the readers of the 



