TO THE FARMER. 17 



the brief period during which earnest efforts have 

 been made to apply it to agriculture ? or would it 

 not be more just to wait, before expressing an unfa- 

 vorable decision, until the many germs which dur- 

 ing the last five years it has put forth, in conse- 

 quence more particularly of the impulse it has re- 

 ceived from the labors of Liebig and Boussingault, 

 show themselves in their issues to be universally un- 

 fruitful ? Chemistry awaits the arrival of this epoch 

 without solicitude or apprehension ; if many buds 

 and blossoms should fall away and perish from its 

 earliest shoots, others will undoubtedly at a later pe- 

 riod set for fruit, and yield a bountiful and service- 

 able harvest. 



Chemistry, again, is able to prove eminently ser- 

 viceable to the agriculturist when he carries on, in 

 addition to mere tillage and cattle-breeding, various 

 operative and collateral trades ; viz. distilling, brew- 

 ing, the preparation of starch or starch-sugar, and 

 the manufacture of sugar from beet-root. Here it 

 is not found a difficult task to gain the confidence of 

 the farmer, because the advantages to which it led 

 were so palpable, as to admit of direct translation 

 into current coin. And reasons of this kind have 

 still the greatest power in producing conviction ; 

 they gain acceptance at the outset. Since chemis- 

 try here possesses that confidence which it also de- 

 sires to gain on the land and in the stable of the 

 husbandman, it would be superfluous to add thereto 

 assurances, proofs, or illustrations. 

 2* 



