FARMERS' liEGISTER 



333 



far as the matter in hand is concerned. These 

 accurate chemical analyses are seldom wanted for 

 a<^ricultural purposes; whilst such rough analyses 

 as are needed, can be performed with but little la- 

 bour, and but little apparatus. The remarks of 

 SirH- Davy on this point are : — "There is no idea 

 more unfounded than that a ijcreat devotion of lime, 

 and a minute knowledi^e of jreneral chemistry are 

 necessary (or pursuin*^ experiments on the nature of 

 soils, and the properties of manures. Nothing can 

 be more easy than to discover whether a soil ef- 

 fervesces, or changes color by the action of an 

 acid, or whether it burns when heated, or what 

 weight it loses by heal ; and yet these simple indi- 

 cations may be of great importance in a system ol 

 cultivation. The expense connected with chemi- 

 cal inquiries is extremely triHing; a small closet is 

 sufficient lor containing all the materials required. 

 The most important experiments maybe made by 

 means of a small portable apparatus; — a lew phi- 

 als containing aciiis, alkalies, and chemical rea- 

 gents; a lamp, a crucible, some filtering paper, 

 some lunnels and glasses for receiving products, 

 are all that can be considered as absolutely essen- 

 tial for pursuing useful researches." The opinion 

 of a man, who, like Davy, devoted his lile to che- 

 mical studies, and no small portion of it to agricul- 

 tural chemistrj', and who of course was competent 

 to express an opinion, should be received as deci- 

 sive respecting this matter. 



Intimately connected with chemistry, and bear- 

 ing upon the same point, viz. the elucidation of the 

 nature o(" soils, are the two intimately connected 

 sciences of mineralogij and geology. Besides 

 their direct application lo agriculture, in this way, 

 any one who will call lo mind the large number 

 of mmeral substances which are uselLiI to man, in 

 almost all the various arts of lile, must at once 

 see the value of a knowledge of these sciences to 

 the farmer, considered in the character of the 

 owner of the soil. In speaking ofthe great value 

 of mineral substances, it will besulRcient to men- 

 tion, the various metallic ores ; silex, used in the 

 manulacture of glass; the different clays, used as 

 pigments and in the manulacture of porcelain, 

 earthenware and bricks ; hydraulic and common 

 limestone used in the preparation of cements, and 

 liie latter, so extensively and with such evident, 

 benefit applied as a manure ; marble, and sulphate 

 of lime, or plaster, salt and coal, the uses of which 

 are familiar to every one. These constitute what 

 is very properly termed the "mineral wealth" oi 

 a country, and have been scattered in such profu- 

 Bion by the hand of a bounteous Creator that no 

 large portion of land can be Ibund in any country, 

 in which some of them do not exist. It is a lixct, 

 perhaps not generally known, that almost all mine- 

 rals are definite compounds; that is, contain 

 fixed and invariable portions of the elements of 

 which they are composed; and that the diH'erent 

 species of minerals can be distinguished Irom each 

 other, by characteristics obvious at once to the 

 senses, or else by such simple chemical tests as 

 every one may command ; so that to a person 

 familiar with these characteristics, chemical an- 

 alysis is very seldom rtiquisite, to determine their 

 exact composition. It is the object of the mine- 

 ralogist to ascertain the obvious characterisiics of 

 each species of mineral, so that by a very sim- 

 ple examinatioHj he may be enabled to recog- 

 nize it. 



Every year there is a great deal of labor fruit- 

 lessly expended, and a great deal of money thrown 

 iivvay, in different pans of our country, to which 

 even a slight knowledge of mineralogy would 

 <rive such a direction, as to make it profitable, in- 

 stead of being, as it is, a complete loss to the com- 

 munity. I am acquainted with a case in which 

 a copper mine was sold some years since for 50,- 



000 dollars, and now the purchasers are prosecut- 

 ing the sellers, on the ground of a fraud in the 

 saFe, the fraud alleged consisting in their having 

 repres'jnted the mine as a valuable one, when in 

 liict it was utterly worthless. From a personal 

 examination of this mine, made at the request of 

 a person who thought of becoming interested in it, 



1 will venture to assert, that with a slight know- 

 ledge of mineralogy, all this waste of time and 

 money, and character too, might have been saved. 

 I am acquainted with a case in which, at this pre- 

 sent time, a person is industriously engaged indig- 

 ing up what he believes to be plaster, when by 

 the simplest process in the world, he might be 

 satisfied that there is not a particle of plaster in it. 

 I know of an instance in which a gentleman ex- 

 pended a large part of his fortune, in making ex- 

 tensive preparations for working what he supposed 

 to he a gold mine, when, in fact, it was nothing 

 but sulphuret of iron or martial pyrites; and so 

 simple an operation as heating a small fragment 

 of it in the fiame of a candle, would at once have 

 made him aware of his mistake. In the first set- 

 tlement of Virginia, a mistake respecting this 

 same substance, by turning the attention of the 

 colonists from their proper business, that of agri- 

 culture, caused great loss and great suH^'ering to 

 this then intiant colony. But it is needless to mul- 

 tiply instances of this character. It is sufficient 

 to refer to the great mineral riche-; which lie hid- 

 den in almost every part of our country; and to 

 mention, that it is the object of mineralogy to en- 

 able us at once to recognize them by characterisiics 

 obvious to the senses, to show the value of such 

 information to the possessor of the soil, and the 

 propriety of including it in a course of agricultural 

 education. 



A third branch of natural science, which may 

 very properly Ibrm a part of a course of agricultu- 

 ral education, is botany, including under Itiis gene- 

 ral name, both systematic botany and vegetable 

 physiology. The object of systematic botany is, 

 so to arrange and so to describe plants, we can at 

 once determine with certainty both their names 

 and their most important properties. In proposing 

 such a study as this, 1 may be met with the ques- 

 tion, why cannot the common names (as they are 

 called) of plants be used by scientific writers, and 

 thus the necessity for such a study be removed? 

 There are several weighty reasons why such a 

 course cannot be adopte^d. One is, that by far the 

 gieater [lart of the plants of every country have 

 no common names ; and even in the case of' those 

 which have, those names are entirely unknown 

 to the greater part of the people. Another ob- 

 jection is, that the common names of plants arc 

 not uniform throughout the country; in many in- 

 stances the same plant being called by difierent 

 names, and what is still worse, different plants be- 

 ing called by the same name. To illustrate this 

 objection, I will mention a single instance. In the 

 "Details of experiments on Grasses," given in 

 ihe appendix to Davy's Agricultural Chemistry, 



