ADVERTISEMENT 



In offering to the public the following treatise the 

 publishers believe that they shall render an acceptable 

 service to the agricultural interest, the most important 

 interest, of the United States. 



The author, one of the most eminent chymists of the 

 age, was at the same time a practical agriculturist, own- 

 ing large estates, which were for a long time cultivated 

 under his personal direction. " In order," says he, " to 

 make a useful application of the sciences to agriculture, 

 it must be profoundly studied, not only in the closet, but 

 abroad in the fields." By pursuing this method he was 

 able to describe processes, and set down the course and 

 the results of his large experience, with a fulness and 

 clearness, that make them immediately available to the 

 practical farmer. " In my explanations," he remarks, 

 " I may sometimes have fallen into error, but I do not 

 believe that I have misstated a single fact." 



The only work of note in the English language on the 

 subject of Agricultural Chymistry is that of Davy, which 

 was published in the year 1813. It consists of eight 

 lectures delivered annually for ten years before the 

 Board of Agriculture. In his preface he observes, that 

 the rapid advance of chymical science obliged him to 

 vary them each year they were delivered, and to alter 

 them still further when preparing them for the press. 



Ten years afterwards, in 1823, appeared the first edi- 

 tion of the present work, in which the author says, " The 

 celebrated Davy has already published an Agricultural 



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