PREFACE 



This book is intended as a practical handbook in 

 Agricultural Chemistry for Students working through 

 courses of instruction for the London B.Sc. degree in 

 Agriculture and other examinations of similar type and 

 standard. 



In order to avoid the baldness that cannot be 

 dissociated from a mere list of practical experiments, 

 a short theoretical discussion has been given where 

 necessary before each series of operations, in order to 

 recall to the mind of the student the more salient points 

 in connection with the practical work he has in hand. 



Emphasis has been placed on the qualitative side 

 of the subject to a greater extent than is frequently 

 done. It is a matter of extreme regret that many of 

 the students who leave our Agricultural Colleges do 

 so with very little appreciation of the practical value 

 of chemistry to agriculture, and with no more than a 

 theoretical insight into the mechanism and meaning of 

 the countless changes with which they are destined 

 continually to come in contact during their agricultural 

 career. This is often due to their having spent most 

 of their time in the chemical laboratory in working 

 through analytical processes, the intricacies of which 

 have had little meaning for them. It seems to us that 



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