TRANSLATOK'S PREFACE. 



From a long experience as works uiana.s^er and chemist in 

 the sulphuric acid and chemical manure trade, the translator 

 has been able to add from his own knowled^/e acquired in 

 actual practice numerous original practical notes to the 

 Enghsh edition of M. Fritsch"s work, solely with the object 

 of increasing the utihty of the treatise. It is to be hoped 

 that the book which, independent of these notes, has unique 

 merits of its own, will appeal in its Enghsh dress not only to 

 manure manufacturers but to farmers themselves, as well as 

 to agricultural students and all those who take an intelligent 

 interest in the subject of agricultural chemistry. Common 

 sense dictates that it is equally important for the student of 

 agriculture to be able if need be to eti'ect the synthesis of a 

 manure as to be able to carry out the analysis thereof. The 

 student who can construct mentally a formula for a manure 

 to yield, whether by dry mixing or wet mixing, certain pre- 

 determined results on analysis, is more highly trained than he 

 who can only use the faculties of destruction to resolve a 

 manure into its constituent elements by slavishly following 

 a treatise on agricultural chemical analysis, and that too often 

 by methods which he would have to unlearn if he entered a 

 manure factory, where he wrfiild have to analyse manures 

 and raw materials against chemists of world-wide reputation. 



DONALD GRANT. 



May, V.ni. 



VI 



