No. 2. 



Chemistry and Farming. 



53 



become a man of science ; because, men of 

 science are best capable of conducting scien- 

 tific research ; and, being so qualified, could 

 best understand the relation which their in- 

 vestigations bore to practice ; and, until the 

 relation betwixt principles and practice are 

 well understood, scientific researches, though 

 perhaps important in themselves, and inter- 

 esting in their results, tend to no practical 

 utility in agriculture. In short, until the 

 facts of husbandry be acquired by practice, 

 men of science will in vain endeavour to 

 construct a satisfactory theory of agriculture 

 on the principles of the inductive philosophy. 



" If this view of the present position of the 

 science of agriculture be correct, it may be 

 expected to remain in a state of quiescence, 

 until men of science become practical agri- 

 culturists, or, what would still prolong its 

 state of dormancy, until farmers acquire sci- 

 entific knowledge. It is a pity to damp the 

 ardour of scientific pursuit where it is found 

 to exist ; but, from what I have observed of 

 the scanty services science has hitherto con- 

 ferred on agriculture, and knowing the al- 

 most helpless dependency of farming on the 

 seasons, I am reluctantly impelled to the be- 

 lief, that it is less in the power of science to 

 benefit agriculture, than the sanguine expec- 

 tations of many of its true friends would lead 

 farmers to believe. It is wrong to doubt the 

 power of science to assist agriculture mate- 

 rially; and it is possible, in this age of suc- 

 cessful art, that an unexpected discovery in 

 science, may yet throw a flood of light on 

 the path of the husbandman ; but I am pretty 

 sure, unless the man of science become also 

 the practical husbandman, it will be difficult, 

 if not impossible, for him to discover which 

 department of the complicated art of hus- 

 bandry is most accessible to the research of 

 science. 



" Hitherto, as it appears to me, agriculture 

 has derived little benefit from the sciences, 

 notwithstanding its obvious connection with 

 many of them." 



" Chemistry is somehow imagined to be 

 the science that can confer the greatest 

 benefits on agriculture. This opinion seems 

 confirmed in the minds of most writers and 

 agriculturists, and especially the English, 

 most probably from the circumstance of an 

 eminent chemist having been the first to 

 undertake the explanation of agricultural 

 practice on strictly scientific principles. Sir 

 Humphry Davy has, no doubt, been the cause 

 of bestowing on that science a character, 

 whose influence was imagined to be more 

 capable of benefiting agriculture, than its 

 eulogists have since been able to establish. 

 He endeavoured to explain with great acute- 

 ness, many of the most familiar phenomena 



of agriculture, when in possession of very 

 limited acquaintance with practical facts; 

 and the result has been, that wmilst his own 

 chemical researches have conferred no prac- 

 tical benefit on agriculture — his conclusions 

 being in collision with practice — the field of 

 observation and experiment which he explor- 

 ed and traversed, has since been carefully 

 avoided by succeeding chemists, in the con- 

 viction, no doubt, that wherein he failed, they 

 were not likely to succeed. The idea seem- 

 ed never to have struck them, that Sir Hum- 

 phry had attempted to enforce a connection 

 betwixt chemistry and agriculture, which 

 both were incapable of maintaining. View- 

 ing the relation betwixt them merely in a 

 practical point of view, I can see no very 

 obvious connection betwixt tilling the soil, 

 and forcing crops by manure for the support 

 of man and beast, — which is the chief end of 

 agriculture, — and ascertaining the constitu- 

 ent parts of material bodies, organic and in- 

 organic, — which is the principal business of 

 chemistry. A knowledge of the constituent 

 parts of soils, plants, or manures, now forms 

 a necessary branch of general chemical edu- 

 cation, but how that knowledge can improve 

 agricultural practice, has never yet been 

 practically demonstrated. No doubt, chem- 

 istry informs us that plants will not vegetate 

 in pure earths, and that those earths consti- 

 tute the principal basis of all soils ; but as 

 pure earths are never found in soils, in their 

 ordinary state, farmers can have no chance 

 of raising crops on them. It may be true, 

 as chemistry intimates, that plants imbibe 

 their food only when in a state of solution ; 

 but what avails this fact to agriculture, if 

 fact it be, when manures are only applied in 

 a solid state 1 It may be quite true, as chem- 

 istry declares, that plants cannot supply, 

 from their composition, any substance they 

 have not previously derived from the air, 

 earth, or decomposed organic matter; but of 

 what practical use to agriculture is this de- 

 claration, as long as farmers successfully 

 raise every variety of crop from the same 

 manure I Chemistry may be quite correct in 

 its views with regard to all these particulars, 

 but so is practice, and yet both are very far 

 from agreeing; and as long as this consti- 

 tutes the only sort of information that chem- 

 istry affords, it is unimportant to the farmer. 

 He wishes to be shown hoio to render the soil 

 more fertile, manures more effective, and 

 crops more prolific, by the practical applica- 

 tion of chemical principles." 



An American Aloe, said to flower but 

 once in one hundred years, is now in full 

 bloom at Harden Grange, Yorkshire, the 

 seat of W. B. Ferrand, Esq., M. P. 



