52 



Chemistry and Farming. 



Vol. VII. 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Chemistry and Farming. 



The first part of " The Book of the Farm," 

 published at Edinburgh, by Henry Stephens, 

 the able editor of the Quarterly Journal of 

 Agriculture, contains some interesting; re- 

 marks on the unrealised calculations that 

 have been made by many, in relation to the 

 advantages which are supposed to have re- 

 sulted to agriculture, from the researches of 

 scientific men. Without adopting the writ- 

 er's views throughout, or responding to the 

 discouraging statements which he makes, as 

 to the benefits conferred upon agriculture by 

 the investigations of science, I have been 

 forced to conclude, there was much good 

 sound sense in the quotations which I here- 

 with offer to the Cabinet. The editors will 

 doubtless agree with myself, that the labours 

 of Davy, Liebig, Johnson, and others of this 

 class, are hardly appreciated by Stephens. 

 It appears to me, these men have done much; 

 they have laboured in a field where much 

 was to do, and where much has been well 

 done. But, after all, farming in this coun- 

 try, is a plain matter of fact — practical ope- 

 ration. To the man who, like your corre- 

 spondent, holds his ploug-h himself, and sup- 

 ports his family by the slow returns from his 

 farm, and whose means are concentrated on 

 his farm, it appears to me vain to talk about 

 his searching into all the rationale of na- 

 ture's operations on his lands. I have read 

 abundance about oxygen and hydrogen, and 

 sulphates and carbonates, and elaborations, 

 &c. &c, and I have set it all down as, no 

 doubt, very wise, and to the purpose; but 

 when I closed my book, it was as when I 

 opened it, all Greek. I know you will rap my 

 knuckles for this heterodoxy; but you need 

 not be responsible for my sentiment- — and 

 you may tell me, if you will, that the -' : >)!- 

 tific writers on agriculture are not obliged 

 to spend their strength in investigating and 

 elucidating matters, and then find me brains 

 to understand them. Very good; but to 

 ninety-nine in a hundred in this country, 

 farming is entirely and thoroughly a practi- 

 cal operation ; and those practical operators 

 cannot possibly comprehend why they should 

 be perpetually dinged with the dishearten- 

 ing assurance, that they never will make 

 farmers till they know all about the ologies 

 and affinities of the laboratory ! They do not 

 believe it. They want to profit by the suc- 

 cessful practice of others, and improve by 

 their own misdirected experiments : we will 

 look quietly on, therefore, while the 1 

 are disputing whether plants get their li villa- 

 in this way, or in that — and until the grave 

 question is settled, whether the irregular 



forms of the main root, may not be accurate- 

 ly developed by analytical formula,* we shall 

 be content to let them have their own way, 

 and grow as they have done ever since their 

 creation ! 



But I had almost forgotten the extracts I 

 promised you : they have interested me, a9 

 perhaps you will conclude, any other simple 

 thing would an Ignoramus. 



" Agriculture may, perhaps, truly be con- 

 sidered one of the experimental sciences, as 

 its principles are no doubt demonstrable by 

 the test of experiment, although farmers 

 have not yet been able to deduce principles 

 from practice. It is remarkable, that very 

 few scientific men have as yet been induced 

 to subject agricultural practice to scientific 

 research ; and those of them who have devo- 

 ted a portion of their time to the investiga- 

 tion of its principles, have imparted little or 

 no satisfactory information on the subject. 

 This unfortunate result, may probably have 

 arisen from the circumstance, that agricul- 

 ture has so intimate a relation to every phy- 

 sical science, that, until all those relations 

 are first investigated, no sufficient data can 

 be offered for a satisfactory scientific expla- 

 nation of its practice. The difficulty of the 

 investigation is, no doubt, much enhanced, 

 by husbandry being usually pursued as a 

 purelv practical art, because the facility of 

 thus pursuing it successfully, renders prac- 

 tical men indifferent to science. They con- 

 sider it unnecessary to burden their minds 

 with scientific research, whilst practice is 

 sufficient for their purpose. Could the man 

 of practice, however, supply the man of sci- 

 ence with a series of accurate observations 

 on the leading operations of the farm, the 

 principles of those operations might be much 

 elucidated ; but I conceive the greatest ob- 

 stacle to the advancement of scientific agri- 

 culture, is to be sought in the unacquaint- 

 ance of men of science with practical agri- 

 culture. Would the man of science become 

 acquainted with practice, much greater ad- 

 vancement in scientific agiculture might be 

 expected, than if the practical man were to 



* We are at a loss to surmise, what the writer in 

 this, rather far-fetched allusion, has reference to; un- 

 [eas it be to a statement, which we have seen in a late 

 Number of the "Cambridge Miscellany." It is there 

 said, that some calculations have been made and pre- 

 sented to tbe Academy at St. Petersburg)], in relation to 

 the "spiral curves f irmed by the fresh shoots from the 

 axes of trees and plants." And a "hope is indulged, 

 that by analyzing the laws of these spirals, a mathe- 

 matical theory of vegetation may be constructed, 

 which can be compared with the species and genera of 

 Botanists."— Ed. 



