1853. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



205 



For the Neiv England Farmer. 

 HOW CAN CHEMISTRY BENEFIT THE 

 FARMER? 



BY HENRV F. FRENCH. 



The novelist Coopet, somewhere says that "men 

 at thirty put on their interested spectacles, and sel- 

 dom afterwards see anything very lovely, that is 

 not, at the same time, very lucrative V 



Farmers are obliged, at the Nortli, to keep on 

 their interested spectacles, and look through them 

 pretty sharply too, to discern clearly what is show 

 and what is substance. They need all the aid that 

 knowledge can give them, and cannot afford to be 

 often deceived. We cannot expect to live long 

 enough to plant and gather more than some forty 

 or fifty annual crops, and a few years of error 

 make a sad discount on the good results of our 

 life, whether it be in field-culture or heart culture. 



All knowledge eventually becomes practical. 

 The unaccountable turning of the needle to the 

 pole, the expansive power of heat upon water and 

 air, and the instantaneous passage of electricity, 

 are as much practical, hard working facts, as are 

 our horses and oxen. Chemistry, if it has not 

 discovered the philosopher'' s stone, vrhich shall 

 turn all it touches to gold, nor the universal sol- 

 vent, nor the secret o? renewing youth, and render- 

 ing it perpetual, has doneyar better for mankind, 

 by analyzing the stones on our farms, teaching 

 how to dissolve them, and convert their elements 

 into food for the hungry. 



The chemist now makes great promises, as did 

 the alchemist of old. Ilis laboratory is a mystery, 

 and his technical language unintelligible, to most 

 working men — as much so now as centuries ago. 

 And sad though it be, we must believe that learned 

 men will still be found, base enough to deceive 

 their fellow-men, under the pretence of benefiting 

 them, for their own advantage. When Aaron cast 

 down his rod before Pharaoh, and it became a ser- 

 pent, the magicians and sorcerers by their en- 

 chantments did the same, and caused their rods 

 also to become serpents, and from that time to 

 this, the contest between truth and error has been 

 60 evenly matched, that the world has been, like 

 poor Pharaoh, sorely puzzled always, to discern the 

 difference. 



The science of chemistry, though full of myste- 

 ry and difficulty, has already established certain 

 great, tangible, practical principles, of infinite 

 value to the agriculturist. It has disclosed to us, 

 among the rest, that plants, which were looked up- 

 on formerly as the results of incomprehensible acci- 

 dents, are made of something, and that the same 

 kind of plant is formed substantially always o[ the 

 same materials. It takes the plant to pieces, and 

 weighs and measures its constituent parts, and 

 tells us how much of each it contains, and so we 

 learn that the plant cannot be formed, unless 

 somehow the elements of which it consists are 

 furnished. 



And next, chemistry looks at our soil, takes that 

 to pieces, and tells us of what it is composed; and 

 chemistry, too, makes a pretty good guess at least, 

 of what the air supplies to the plant, and so in- 

 forms us, whether the plant, which we desire to 

 raise on our land, can find enough to eat and 

 drink, and be clothed withal, with leaves and flow- 

 ers and fruit, within its reach. 



The principles being thus settled, aad being so 



simple that a child may comprehend them, next 

 comes the practical application of them. 



Farmers, like "the rest of mankind," have con- 

 siderable human nature in them ! They are pleased 

 with new fancies, and nearly as likely, though I 

 think not quite, to be humbugged, as their neigh- 

 bors. The Merino sheep fever, when a handsome 

 buck brought two thousand dollars, and the Mul- 

 ticaulis fever, attackedyarmers, as well as others ! 



The market is full of scientific manures, as well 

 as of scientific principles. Farmers are assured, 

 in advertisements, that specific manures may be 

 purchased, ao valuable and cheap, that stable ma- 

 nure would not be worth hauling a mile, if to be 

 had for nothing I and other advertisements assure 

 them, that for a few dollars, analyses of their soils 

 will be furnished with infallible directions, for 

 the treatment of their land. 



Now it is well known, that gross frauds have 

 already been practised, in the sale of adulterated 

 uano. No farmer can distinguish pure Peruvian 

 guano, from a mixture readily formed, which 

 shall be but one-third guano. Superphosphate of 

 lime is, perhaps, the best scientific preparation for 

 manure yet discovered, but nothing short of a 

 chemical analysis can detect the vilest imposition 

 in its manufacture. The soil can be analyzed ac- 

 curately, but all chemists agree, that the process 

 is one of great care, and nicety, requiring much 

 skill and practice and time, and that a charge of 

 twenty dollars is reasonable for a single process, 

 properly conducted. The farmer who procures an 

 analysis, has of himself no means of knowing 

 whether the result given him is accurate, wheth- 

 er it is a mere approximation to the truth, or a 

 mere guess. 



The only security, then, that the farmer has 

 against imposition, the only security that true sci- 

 ence has against quackery and false pretensions, 

 is in the personal character of those engaged in the 

 departments in question. 



Employ a chemist, as you employ a physician, 

 not only because he has skill, but because he has 

 a high reputation for integrity and honor. Pur- 

 chase costly fertilizers, as you would purchase val- 

 uable jewels, only of dealers, whose known char- 

 acter places them above suspicion of fraud. The 

 different results of experiments with specific ma- 

 nures arise probably, as often from differences in 

 the substances used, as in the soil itself. 



The true value of the science of chemistry will 

 never be appreciated, until more of system is con- 

 nected with its application to the use of the far- 

 mer. I have thought that in Massachusetts, a 

 State advanced far beyond its neighbors in agricul- 

 tural improvements, that a system like the follow- 

 ing might, ere long, be adopted. Let there be a 

 chemist for each county, residing there, and 

 acting under the direction of the County Soci- 

 ety, or the Board of Agriculture. Let him be_ a 

 practical chemist and a practical farmer. Let him 

 make careful analyses of the various classes of 

 soil which compose his county — of the pine plain 

 — of the clay — of the alluvial soil by the rivers — 

 of the hard pan soil of the hills. A decent knowl- 

 edge of the geological formation of the country 

 about him, a series of careful observations as to 

 the mechanical condition of the soil, with the re- 

 sults of his researches in his laboratory, might, it 

 would seem, give him such a general knowledge 

 of the requirements of each class of soil, that, 



