CHAPTER V. 



RESULTS OF THE CHEMICAL EXAMINATIONS OF VARIOUS SOILS. 



PROPOSITION 2 continued. 



The certainty of any results of chemical analysis would bo 

 doubted by most persons who have paid no attention to the means 

 employed for such operations ; and their incredulity will be the 

 more excusable, when such results are reported by one knowing 

 very little of the science of chemistry, and whose limited know- 

 ledge was gained without aid or instruction, and was sought solely 

 with the view of pursuing this investigation. Appearing under 

 such disadvantages, it is therefore the more incumbent^ on me to 

 show my claim to accuracy, or to so explain my method as to ena- 



Johnston's " Lectures on the Applications of Chemistry and Geology to 

 Agriculture," which was first published, complete in four parts, in London 

 in 1844. But as the earlier parts had been published in succession, I had 

 been able to see the first three at the close of 1843. The third part con- 

 tains the author's views and compilation of facts, chemical and agricultural, 

 of lime, as a constituent of soils and as manure. On these subjects, he is 

 more full of information than any or all preceding authors, because able to 

 draw from, compare, and decide upon the views of all his predecessors, 

 with the aid of the latest information as to European scientific research 

 and agricultural practices and results and which advantages seem to-have 

 been used generally with ability and discretion. 



It appears from both Boussingault's and Johnston's works, tha/ the new 

 and still very defective science of agricultural chemistry no longer labours 

 under some of the grossest defects and errors which were indirectly and 

 justly charged in my remarks above ; or is liable to the formerly just 

 censure there indicated, as will appear in the course of this essay. It is not 

 now left to be inferred, as before, that all or nearly all soils of England 

 and France contain carbonate of lime ; and the errors of the process of 

 analyzing soils, used by Davy, and all other chemists, previous to a very 

 recent time, are pointed out, which errors led to the erroneous conclusion 

 that carbonate of lime is almost universally present in soils. These two 

 authors state many particular soils, as well as classes of soils by inference, 

 which contain not a trace of lime in the state of carbonate, as I had before 

 declared, in opposition to all the then existing authority, to be the case 

 with nearly all the soils of our Atlantic states. But still, after removing 

 this obscurity, it appears manifest from the many reported contents of 

 soils given by Boussingault, Johnston, and Liebig, that soils containing 

 carbonate of lime, and usually in large proportions, are very general in 

 Europe, so far as investigation has gone ; in this respect confirming my 

 own previous inferences, as stated above. 



Some of the statements of these latest and ablest authorities, which now 

 offer cbnfirnuftory testimony for my foAnerly unsupported and novel 

 opinions, will be quoted in notes, or otherwise, on proper occasions. 1840.] 



(55) 



