IV COMMENDATIONS. 



understood explanations given. You have brought the chemis- 

 try and general science of agriculture down to so fine a point 

 that the most illiterate cultivator, if he can only read the English 

 language, cannot help but know what is wanted to improve his 

 land, and supply that want at a fair money value. Forty years 

 ago, I was just arriving at manhood, and since that time, have 

 been actively employed in practical farming and horticulture, and 

 can truly state, from actual experience, that many of your deduc- 

 tions are perfectly correct. In fact, you have brought before the 

 public a greater amount of reliable information, in condensed 

 form, than is to be found in Liebig and Johnson combined, or any 

 other work of the same kind which I have yet seen. 



(Signed,) WM. CHORLTOK 



NO. III. 



From tlie North American and United States Gazette, the leading 

 Commercial Paper of Philadelphia : 



The authors premise that strictly scientific writers on the use 

 and composition of fertilizers are usually too technical for the 

 comprehension of practical men, and the merely practical writers 

 record results without elucidating causes or opening the philoso- 

 phy involved. They essay to unfold the frauds of manufactured 

 manures, of which, it is said, 500,000 tons are sold annually in 

 this country, at a cost of $25,000,000, to the farmers. One chap- 

 ter is surrendered to an exposition of the elements of manures 

 and plants, and the action of one on the other ; another to the 

 kind and amount of fertilizer different plants need ; one to the 

 composition of soils, and others to the values of fertilizers in 

 money. The last chapter is filled with analyses. There is 

 enough in almost any ten pages treating of the patent manures 

 and fertilizers to ground as many libel suits. One fertilizer after 

 another is shown to be deficient in value, or over-priced, or 

 otherwise undesirable, and the authors state how they secured 

 the material from which their analyses were made. So far as 

 the chemistry of agriculture is involved, the work is admirable. 

 "We hesitate only over the exposition made of special articles so 

 long and highly commended. But conceding the truth of the 

 statements, every farmer should use fertilizers, and telescopes 

 endless in selecting them. We fail to notice any apparent com- 

 mendation of one at the cost of the others, but do see that 

 the German fertilizers have a double per cent, of phosphates 

 over the best of our own. The book proposes to enable every 

 farmer to compost for himself, and so secure a reliable fertilizer. 

 The importance of the subject cannot be over-estimated, and tlw 

 capital at issue will certainly advertize this work in one way 01 

 another strongly. It seems to be thoroughly fair and reliable. 



