MR. NICHOLS ADDRESS. 5 



tural implements. They place them all on a level with JMrs. 

 Chauncy's new patent cooldng stove, ■which had so many flues, and 

 valves, and dampers, that it took a full cord of wood to warm it in 

 all its intricate passages and windings. What they do know, they 

 learned from their loved and venerated ancestors, who as emigrants 

 direct from some of the British Isles, were instructed in the ac- 

 complished husbandry of Queen Elizabeth's time, when ploughs 

 were formed from the angular trunk of an oaken tree, sharpened 

 to a point by a rude disk of iron called an axe, and propelled by 

 animals ^yith hempen cords attached, may be, to their caudal ex- 

 tremities. 



Such farmers generally have strong limbs attached to stalwart 

 frames. Their physical capabilities may be surprisingly great, 

 while the intellectual is allowed to starve, in company with the ne- 

 glected plant children of their fields. They learn but little from 

 constantly witnessing the operations of nature's laws, for they are 

 very much hke Dobbin's horse, capable of drawing anything but 

 an inference. Whilst disbelieving almost everything based on the 

 soundest principles of exact science, there are some things they do 

 believe. They most firmly believe in slaughtering their swine at 

 the right time of the moon, and nothing would shake their confi- 

 dence in the weather predictions of the Old Farmer's Almanac. I 

 hope, gentlemen, I draw no caricature. In holding up the mirror, 

 I would wish to allow no aberrating rays of light to distort the pic- 

 ture, and render unjust the outline. 



In considering what Chemistry has taught the farmer, we must 

 not, in our eagerness to learn the practical benefits of its teachings, 

 overlook that accumulation of beautiful and important facts, which 

 unfold the philosophy of the origin, the structure, and the growth 

 of plants. In darkness intense as midnight, was this kind of 

 knowledge involved, and it was only by the light of those fires in 

 which were buried the crucibles of the chemist, that the dark cloud 

 was pierced, and all around and beneath illuminated. 



The whole operation and growth of a plant is strictly a chemical 

 problem, and intimate indeed is the connection of the soil cultivator 

 with its germination and growth. He is not the chemist that actu- 

 ally produces the plant. The unseen manipulator whom we desig- 

 nate the "Vital Force," is the chemist who does the work, aud 



