Vol. XIII. 



ROCHESTER, K Y., JANUARY, 1852. 



No. I. 



AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY. 



The winter months are particularly favorable to reading and study, and every farmer 

 should endeavor to master some of the principles of agriculture, -which the rapid progress 

 of science renders intelligible, and the press and the public mail have dr-opped into his 

 hands. Chemistry has, confessedly, done more than any other science to place the cul- 

 tivation of the earth on a safe and enduring basis ; and to it agriculturists in all civilized 

 and enlightened nations are now looking for still more important discoveries, and more 

 valuable aid in the prosecution of their noble art. Tlie husbandman is not expected to 

 be deeply learned in the technicalities of any natural science ; and in treating of them 

 for his perusal, one should be careful to avoid, so far as he may be able, the use of strictly 

 professional terms. This we shall do, and when they occur, a plain deffinition will be 

 given. 



Chemists have found reason to believe that all matter, without exception, is endowed 

 by its Creator with an ever-active /orcc which tends to the formation of compound bodies. 

 What are called chemical affinity, attraction of cohesion, and gravitation, are so many 

 visible manifestations of this natural power. A knowledge of the laws regulating this 

 force, as they affect all the elements of soils and their vegetable and animal products, 

 may be regarded as the Science of Agricultural Chemistry. 



When iron is exposed in a damp atmosphere, it rusts ; and the observer witnesses a 

 common but highly interesting phenomenon. There evidently exist forces in the atoms 

 of the metal and those of oxygen, in the water or atmosphere, which cause these gaseous 

 and solid bodies to unite and form a permanent compound of vital air and a metal called 

 the red oxide, or per-oxide of iron. By this union of unlike atoms their respective forces 

 are not annihilated, but are quiescent, and will be active and ready to act again so soon 

 as heat or any other disturbing element sliall separate the oxygen from its base. It is 

 important in the study of natural laws, to keep in mind the fact that a force may be at 

 rest and not lose its existence. It would be idle to speculate in wdiat form a quiescent 

 force exists ; for we really know nothing of the ultimate atoms of matter itself, and need 

 not attempt to fathom the mystery of gravitation, or of any inherent force displayed by 

 the molecules of the material world. Suffice it to say in this connection, that matter 

 organized in the tissues and vessels of living plants and animals, is not deprived of the 

 natural forces which characterize it when wholly disorganized, and in the form of common 

 air, water, and metals, or earths. 



The development of latent or chemical forces in the elements of crops and soils, is a 

 point to be well considered. Nothing that the husbandman can do to impart activity 

 and progress in those changes which prepare food for plants, is of more importance than 

 the minute subdivision of all solids to be operated upon. To illustrate the fundamental 

 \ principle of all tillage, it may be stated that a mass of iron shows but a slight tendency 



