HINDRANCES AND HELPS. 225 



and if you can use it in the making of shoe-blacking, 

 or to dye your whiskers, do so ; but don't for that 

 reason call it Whisker-chemistry. 



It is a chemical truth that an alkali will neutralize 

 an acid if you fumish enough of it ; and if, with that 

 truth festering in your brain, you can contrive to 

 neutralize your entire fund of oxalic-acid, so that no 

 sorrel shall thenceforth grow, pray do so. But I do 

 not think you can ; and first, because the soil to 

 which quarter you would very naturally direct your 

 alkaline attack may be utterly free of any oxalic 

 acid whatever ; its presence in the plant, is no 

 evidence of its presence in the soil. Pears have a 

 modicum of pectic acid at a certain stage of their 

 ripeness, but I suspect it would puzzle a sharp chem- 

 ist to detect any in the soil of a pear-orchard. And 

 even if the acid were a mineral acid, and were neutral- 

 ized it must be remembered that to neutralize, is 

 only to establish change of condition, and not to de- 

 stroy ; how know you that the little fibrous rootlets 

 will not pi-esently be laying their fine mouths to the neu- 

 tral base, and by a subtle alchemy of their own, work 

 out such restoration as shall mock at your efforts in 

 all their rampant green, and their red tassels of bloom ? 



The presence of any particular substance in a 

 crop, does not ipso facto, warrant the application of 

 the same substance to the soil as the condition of in- 

 10* 



