MONTHLY 



JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE 



KO. 4. 



OCTOBER, 1845. 



VOL. I. 



PORTRAIT AND MEMOIR OF JUSTUS LIEBIG. 



What better proof is needed of increasing 

 public respect for industrial pursuits, than is 

 found in the honors that the world is beginning 

 to pay to men of genius who are accelerating the 

 progress of improvement in these pursuits, by 

 their important discoveries ? 



Time was when tlie laurel was not fitted for 

 the crown until it had been sprinkled with hu- 

 man blood ; but thanks, as we may hope, to a 

 more enlightened public opinion, the highest 

 honors are now to be resei"ved for those whose 

 labors most multiply tlie means of subsistence 

 and comfort for increasing populations. 



Under the influence of this happy change of' 

 public sentiment, we see with pleasure in re- 

 cent English periodicals, of the highest charac- 

 ter for talents and authority, the Portraits and 

 Biographies of men whose minds and lives 

 have been devoted with most efficiency to the 

 cause of the Plow. To a lead so honorable we 

 have already evinced our readiness to follow in 

 the Farmers' Library. If it had not been that 

 we learned when it was too late, that the friend 

 who had been relied on to prepare an Agricul- 

 tural Biography of Judge Peters, had been 

 pn:vented by sickness from taking it in hand, 

 we should have endeavored to present in th:s 

 number tlie Portrait and Memoir of some other 

 eminent American friend of the cause ; as it is, 

 we concluded to try the art of lithography on 

 the Portrait of Justus Liebig, for which, for- 

 eigner as he is, -we trust no apology will be 

 needed ; for, as we have before said, the Plow 

 is of no party, or religion, or country; on its 

 fruits all classes must live, of whatever creed or 

 clime. Moreover, it may be well presumed 

 that all persons acquainted with the progress of 

 literatu'^ and .scientific discovery in the great 

 business of Agriculture, would like to have a 

 nearer and more personal acquaintance with the 

 . (369) 



autlior of a work, in respect to which the most 

 eminent chemists in Europe and America, em- 

 bracing Professor Webster, the able American 

 Editor, concur in opinion, that the information it 

 contains is of great amount, and that " from its 

 publication may be dated a new era in the art 

 of Agriculture." 



While this desire to have, as it were, a per- 

 sonal introduction to men whose u.se fulness 

 brings them into eminence, is but the offspring of 

 a natural and salutary curiosity, their veiy lia- 

 bility to be thus exposed and scrutinized should 

 exert a wholesome influence on the mind and 

 habits of all young persons from the time when 

 they are capable of reflection, and become in- 

 spired, as every one should, with ambition to be 

 distinguished. In such habits, leading to excel- 

 lence, are to be found the first dawnings of the 

 mind and earliest development of the character 

 of greatmen; such, forexample, as Washington 

 and Franklin, and Adams, whose very copy- 

 books, with their " pot-hooks and hangers," 

 ^vere preserved and are stiU extant. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF DR. J. LIEBIG. 



BY DB. SMITH, FORMEBLV HIS PUPIL. 



Darmstadt is but little known to English- 

 men, and until Mr. Murray wrote his " Handbook 

 of Gemiany,'' and showed us the best mode of 

 traveling along the Bergstras-^e, few En?li."h- 

 mcn troubled the little Grand Duchy : but now 

 the formal, straight streets, in an English bath- 

 town fa.sliion, proclaim the intimacy of our Ger- 

 man cousins ■with their ^vandering relations in 

 the .^o calleil " haughty island." In this tovi'n 

 Justus Liebig was bom, 1803. It would be un- 

 just to say that no other remarkable thing has of 

 late happened hero ; a town which show.s, that 

 however unknown to us, it is not ignorant 

 of us, nor of many modes of advancing its citi- 

 zen.s, which England itself seems not to have 

 dreamed of. The father of Justus Liebig was, 

 and is a " materialist," or a colomian, approach- 



