48 



THE COMPOSITION OF FERTILE AND BARREN SOILS. 



its productiveness, call him a fool and an ignorant fellow if he 

 does not follow their recommendation, use such and such a 

 manure, and, in short, adopt that practice which they have picked 

 up in a day or two from some book. You will generally find a 

 man of this class is as ignorant of chemistry as the man he would 

 advise. Put him into a laboratory, and he would not be able to 

 distinguish a bottle containing soda from one containing potash. 

 Men of this character deserve to be laughed at, for they do a 

 great deal of mischief by their lecturing on farming and chemis- 

 try. It is by their means that chemical science especially is 

 brought into discredit among the farmers. 



Trustworthy Science. 



Returning to the subject of science and its agreement with 

 good practice, you will find that its results are based on expe- 

 rience just as are those of agriculture, and not merely on reason- 

 ing. Reasoning is very useful both to the farmer and chemist, 

 but it is by painstaking experiments that the object is attained. 

 I sometimes think that the instances in which the practice of the 

 farmer finds explanation and confirmation in the recent researches 

 of the chemist, would afford a good subject for an illustrative 

 lecture. Whether you take the chemistry of soils, plants, or 

 manures, you will meet with numerous points of contact, showing 

 the intimate connection of chemical science with practical agri- 

 culture; but I am passing away from my subject that of soils. 

 Let me point out in the first place the 



Chemical Character of Soils. 

 ANALYSES OF LOAMY SOILS. 



