WHAT CHEMISTRY HAS TAUGHT. 75 



made of, the absolute proportions of the different materials 

 of which they are made, and that, in mature, well-ripened 

 plants, those proportions are invariable, always have been, 

 and always will be. 



The next point that the chemist has taught us is the abso- 

 lute condition in which all these materials must be in the soil, 

 in order that the vital forces of the plant may use them for its 

 support. Science has told us absolutely what form all this 

 material must be in, and that it must be in a form of simple 

 solubility ; that you may have all the South Carolina phosphate 

 in creation on your land, and until it becomes solvent the plant 

 growing upon your land will starve for w r ant of phosphoric 

 acid. But when it is made solvent, and all the materials are 

 made solvent, then the plant can take it up. 



Then, permit me to mention another thing that chemistry 

 has done. Chemistry has gone so far in its researches, and, 

 in its development of manufacturing industries, that we can 

 to-day, as the result of chemical research, and the manufac- 

 tures which chemistry has started into activity, buy in the 

 market, as market commodities, all those elements of which 

 nature makes plants, in the form in which nature uses them, 

 and at a price which we, as farmers, can afford to pay ; and 

 we can buy them*in any quantity we wish. And when we 

 remember the discovery of potash salts in Germany, and the 

 phosphate beds of South Carolina, all the elements of plant- 

 growth are now at our service. We can get them in limitless 

 quantities, at prices which we can afford to pay, if they are 

 good for anything ; and thus, if need be, we can dispense 

 with barnyard manure. If need be, but not without. 



Now, that is the thing we wanted to learn at the College. 

 We wanted to learn if those materials could be taken and put 

 into the soil, using absolutely the materials that nature uses 

 to make plants, and in absolutely the form in which nature 

 uses them, and if thus we could make plants. But there was 

 another question which came in. Chemistry has taught us, 

 that those materials are found in plants in very different pro- 

 portions, and while the minimum quantity is absolutely 

 essential to the plant, just as essential as the maximum 

 quantity, yet, so far as the farmer was concerned, in supply- 

 ing means, might it not be possible that, if the farmer 



