1853. 



I'^W ENGLAND FARMER, 



447 



low amounted to between 3,000 and 4,000 persons ;| 

 and there they remained, listening to remarks from 

 the strangers who addressed them, and the dec- 

 laration of the awards,. from 4 till half past 5 

 o'clock. ^Ye haver rarely witnessed a more impo- 

 sing and gratifying sight. 



At about sis o'clock, the crowd dispersed, and 

 most of the people from abroad were supposed to 

 have left town. 



The evening, however, brought a crowd of peo- 

 ple again to the Hall, and the committee, at a late 

 hour,'' was obliged to insist upon closing the doors, 

 and the first annual exhibition of the Rockingham 



The whole affiiir has been highly creditable to 

 our enterprising neighbors. There can no longer 

 be any doubters as to the success of the exper 

 iment. We saw, of course, some errors which 

 their sagacity will correct as they proceed. If so 

 lusty and strong in their youth, how will they ex- 

 cel us in their manhood! Massachusetts must 

 look out for her laurels ! 



For the Neiv Ens^land Farmer. 

 A NEW HSLP FOR THS FARMEH. 



Elements of Aoriculthral Chemistry and Geology 

 By J*.MSs F. VV. Johnston, M. A.. F. R. S. S., -fe-^- with a 

 Preface and Index. By Simon Brown, Editor of the New 

 England Farmer. New York : C. M. Saxton 



We are glad to see a new edition of this most 

 excellent work. It is a seasonable publication. 

 Both the publisher and the editor have done a 

 good thing for the rising generation of farmers, 

 and we trust it will prove a good thing for them- 

 selves. The preface contains several judicious 

 and sensible remarks, and, like all the writings of 

 Mr. Brown, is marked by careful observation and 

 practical good sense. The index appears to be 

 prepared with much care, and adds materially to 

 the value of the book. This is true of every good 

 index ; and, indeed, we consider no scientific work 

 eompletvj without an index. We wish authors and 

 publishers would lay this remark to heart and re- 

 duce it to practice. Many scientific books are 

 chiefly valuable as books of reference. But who 

 can refer to a book without an index? The labor 

 of turning over a score of pages, or reading a 

 whole chapter to find a single remark or a fact 

 which a writer wishes to use, is often more than 

 the remark or fact is worth, and is any thing but 



There is one observation in the preface upop 

 which we beg leave to offer a remark. The wri- 

 ter speaks of instructions upon the science of ag- 

 riculture as necessarily abstruse. We take the lib- 

 erty to dissent from this idea. It is indeed true 

 that they are often abstruse, but we do not believe 

 they are necessarily so. Chemistry had its origin 

 in Alchemy. It was long in the hands of astrolo- 

 gers and pseudo-philosophers, who were searching 

 for the elixir of life and the philosopher's stone. 

 Its terms were borrowed from the Greek and 

 Arabic, and it was clothed in the language of 

 mysticism. The days of Astrology and Alchemy 

 passed away with Paracelsus and his school, and 

 Chemistry passed with them from the laboratories 

 of the monks into the hands of the physicians, 



who did little to divest it of the mystery which 

 enveloped it until the time of Lavoisier and his 

 illustrious coadjutors, who gathered up its scatterd 

 elements and reduced it to the true form of a sci- 

 ence, and gave it a nomenclature foundedupon a 

 perfectly simple and most beautiful idea, viz : that 

 every term describing a chemical substance, should, 

 at the same time, designate its composition if a 

 compound body, and its most important use if a 

 simple body. "For example, oxygen is _ derived 

 from oxus, signifying acid, and gigno signifying to 

 generate ; by which we are taught that oxygen is 

 the source or generator of all acids. Hydrogen 

 comes from hudor, water and the same word gigno, 

 indicating that hydrogen is the principal element 

 in water. Of compound bodies we will take sul- 

 phurate of lime as an example. This term teaches 

 that the body which it designates is composed of 

 sulphuric a3id and lime, mixed together in propor- 

 tions just sufficient to neutralize each other. Mu- 

 riate of soda indicates that the substance thus 

 designated is composed of muriatic acid and soda, 

 combined in the same proportions. So with all 

 the terms used in Chemistry. Give the chemist 

 the name of a substance, and he will tell you its 

 composition ; or give him the composition of a 

 body, and he will give you its name. A most 

 beautiful simplicity runs through the whole system. 

 The number of elementary bodies with which 

 the chemist has to do, is hmlted to between fifty 

 and sixty. The terms which he uses, are com- 

 pounded of the few elementary terms which des- 

 cribe these elem-entary bodies. For example, sul- 

 phuric acid, which shows that this acid is com- 

 posed of sulphur and oxygen, the common parent 

 of all acids ; carbonic acid, consisting of carbon 

 and oxygen. Nothing can be more simple than 

 this whole system. The great difficulty in under- 

 standing chemical instruction consists in the want 

 of a proper explanation of the terms, or rather in 

 the want of a proper explanation of the princi- 

 ples upon which the terms are constructed. Where 

 these principles are fully comprehended, and any 

 man of common intelligence may comprehend 

 them in an hour, the teachings of the chemist be- 

 come at once intelligible and interesting. The 

 abstruseness, the mystery that hangs over the 

 subiect like a dense fog, is dissipated by the clear 

 sunlight of simple truth. It is true that many 

 subjects that present themselves to the chemist 

 are exceedingly complex, but patient and careful 

 analysis can reduce them to their constituent ele- 

 ments, and the patience of the chemist is re- 

 warded by the discovery of new and beautiful 

 combinations of simple elements. Now there is 

 nothin<v mysterious, nothing magical, nothing ab- 

 struse ?n all this. And we trust the time is not 

 far distant when all the children— in our high 

 schools at least— when all our young men and 

 youn<^ women will be able to listen to scientifac m- 

 struction upon so much of chemistry as relates to 

 ao-riculture and the common arts of hfe, and to 

 read books upon these subjects with no more diffi- 

 culty in understanding them than they have in 

 understanding household words. 



The publication of this volume will contribute 

 something towards this result. It is simple in 

 its arrangement, being generally accurate in its 

 statements, and more easily comprehended by the 

 general reader than most books upon the same 

 subject. Its analytical tables add much to its 



