into the Practices and Results of Horticulture. 397 



ever they are found to exist ; for, as it has been justly said, 

 there never was an imperfection removed by portraying per- 

 fection. All persons, therefore, who undertake such a task, 

 must often appear invidious, and be exposed to the effect of 

 vindictive feelings ; and much of this I have encountered : 

 but, conscious of the purity of my motives, and trusting it will 

 be admitted, that the importance of the object is sufficiently 

 great to supersede personal feelings, 1 do not hesitate to in- 

 vite your subscribers to join me in my endeavours ; and if they 

 will do me the favour to give my observations their attention, 

 I promise, that whatever observations they may be inclined to 

 make on my conclusions, shall be met with all due candour 

 and courtesy, and replied to with readiness. Those who ai'e 

 acquainted with my former writings must admit, that, if I am 

 right, the general practice of gardening must have been, and 

 now is, most egregiously wrong ; however, leaving this to any 

 future discussion that may be called for, I shall make my first 

 essay on the nature of the food of plants, and the best method 

 of pi'eparing it; and, notwithstanding all that has been said on 

 the subject, I hope my observations will prove to be sufficiently 

 original and important to be thought worthy of the attention 

 of your readers. 



Although many of our most eminent chemists have been 

 long since engaged in discovering the cause of fertility, and 

 the means of producing and restoring it to the earth when 

 exhausted, I am not aware that they have succeeded in esta- 

 blishing any improved system of practice. In these observa- 

 tions, however, I trust it will not be supposed that I mean in 

 the least to depreciate their labours ; 1 am ready to allow, 

 that without the application and exertion of the superior abi- 

 lities of the chemists of the present day, and the discoveries 

 they have been enabled to make, the science of horticulture 

 must ever have remained, as it appears to me ever to have 

 been, very indistinct and obscure. The extraordinary powers 

 of decomposition and analysis acquired by Sir H. Davy and 

 his contemporaries, have enabled them to make such demon- 

 strations, as, at one view, clearly show that it must have been 

 impossible for their predecessors ever to have acquired a cor- 

 rect knowledge of the elementary substances combined in the 

 formation of the different productions of nature ; and, conse- 

 quently, that it must have been alike impossible for them to have 

 established the art of horticulture, or, indeed, of chemistry, on 

 the principles of science. But, notwithstanding what has been 

 done, it is the expressed opinion of one of its most eminent 

 professors, that the science of chemistry is far from being com- 

 plete; and, whatever improvements may have been made of late, 



