

THE AMIICULTi RAL GAZETTE. 



[April js 



coming harvest will be imported in large quantities 

 before our own corn harvest is completed, and before 

 therefore the autumn seed-time of this plant, but 

 e exhaustion of the supply at present speak 

 plainly of the estimation in which the crop is held; 

 and we doubt not that the extent of next year's crop 

 will be vastly greater than the seed had hitherto ; 

 large quantities will, however, arrive in autumn, 

 both by itself and as mixture with trifolium 

 incarnatum. 



It is a singular fact, but not more sir. than 



true, that the very first step in the ciknch of 

 Matter is a step into the invisible world ! How 

 nearly extremes mce 1 . — how el ly the Amplest 

 rudiment of the most material knowledge borders 

 upon the most occul philosophy, is a reflection that 

 in some hape or other finds aca into the mind of 

 the very beginner in the great field of chemistry, and 

 never can desert him again during the whole progress 

 of his studies. He t; es up a lump of soil, or a 

 piece of metal, or a glass of wa r, or, if you please, 

 a dose of ' physic, 1 and says " Teach me what these 

 things be; unriddle me the history of Matter. I 

 see it around me in every shape, colour, and con- 

 sistency. 1 learn by degrees something of its u 3, 

 through practice ; and 1 see that it has certain 

 rcl ms, one thing with another; that heat turns 

 solids into liquids and liquids into gases; and 

 that cold on the other hand congeals them again. 

 I see that ^ .etables are gi n when exposed to the 

 d. light, and are blanched by darkness: I see that 

 animals must have air, to breathe, and fire must 

 have air, to burn ; I see that coach wheels commit 

 spont; :ous combustion if they are not greased. 

 Tell me something about all this, that 1 may under- 

 stand as well as see it : what are these substances, 

 and what are the laws, if any, which govern them." 

 It is true, people do not ask these questions, else, 

 all men would become ' chemists.' Nay there are 

 human skulls that do not pick up factology enough 

 in the drama of existence for the very prologue to 

 of the queries we have hazarded. Certain captains 

 of emigrant ships we wot of who never knew that 

 air was an essential to human life under the battened- 

 dowu hatches of a crowded cabin ; housemaids are 

 proverbial unbelievers in the necessity of air to the 

 laving, lighting, and burning of a fire ; and the 

 'Kin- of Uantam' was a stout infidel to the last, 



! 



common sense and common knowled 





of 



a man draws his breath he is liable to be choked by 

 such a compound as imagination must attribute to 

 the words < teygen, Nitrogen, and Carbonic-acid 

 gas ! Yet the humiliating fact is literally incapable 

 of statement in shorter or less dangerous terms. We 

 say t dangerous ', in deference to a prejudice : not 

 that we actually believe the stories ; but there are 

 those among the foes of science who will have it 

 that authentic cases of lock-jaw have occurred from 

 too rapid and ambitious a pi ogress in chemical 

 nomenclature. 



But, seriously and truly, is it not a misfortune that 



the instant you try to simplify Nature to a man, (for 



he object of all learning is, surely, to simplify 



something which was difficult before ; not to make 



what does knowledge mean ?) 



things, be rightly considered : but the truth 



tself a word more thoroug 

 it embraces, being of such questionable 



connniQ 

 is Out 



sounds 

 huma 







it harder; — eise, 



that you are obliged to begin bowling such skew 

 balls as these ! Oxygen, Nitrogen , Carbonic- acid! 

 Why, if the theory of Lucretius be true that 



produce their effect upon the drum of the 

 ear by virtue of infinitely small but solid 

 atoms, smooth and round in the case of pleasant 

 noises, angular jagged and even barbed in the case 

 of harsh ones ; this very first lesson in chemistry 

 must, upon poor Dobson's auditory faculties, have 

 pretty much the effect of a sudden explosion of pins 

 and needles and fish-hooks ! 



How is he to know by inspiration that Oxygen 

 in plain English signifies < acid-maker/ or in more 

 xpre>sive Yankee— ( Sort o' Sour/ and that it 

 discolors the leaves in autumn, ' making the green 

 one red,' and that this same red is in fact its livery 

 colour, as he may also see upon any piece of steel 

 or iron exposed to air or moisture, or still more 

 strikingly in the color of the blood of all things 

 which breathe; that act of breathing being the in- 

 haling of this oxygen into the lungs, which have the 

 faculty of separating and absorbing it from the air, 

 or, in the case of fishes, from water, which contains 

 it in greater quantity than air does. And how, 

 again, is he to know what < Carbon' means, unless 

 you can somehow- convey to him that it indicates 

 the solid and weight-giving property of wood and 

 coal and charcoal, and other such substances, that 

 its ' livery' colour is dark blue, approaching to 

 black; that whenever it meets with the aforesaid 

 oxygen, especially in the presence of warmth, they 



in the matter of ice, since in his climate, wherever begin to fi^ht consumedly, and go on firfitinff till 

 that was, water never froze. 1:1 - **- r M • "-■ * & fe - b ' - 



But, such notable exceptions apart, no sooner, 

 we repeat, does the inquirer into the history of 



Matter open the first rudimentary page of reply to and slow, men call it 

 his l jue&lioning of visible outward things," than 

 he finds himself at once launched into the in- 



visible world, as the only interpreter of the visible, 

 and discovers that his 



" eyes are made the fools o' tlie other senses," 



which he has been accustomed to think " worth all 

 the rest." 





It is called, and justly, one of the 

 noblest of sights to see the weighs structure of a 

 ship whose solid ribs have consumed the heart-of- ox .vgen 



oak of some SO acres of forest-land in the building, carbon, he would not* be\ery far wrong though not 

 glide for the first time down the slips that launch ( l uite ri ght. 



like the Kilkenny cats, they have eaten each other 

 up ; that if the fight be short and violent it produces 

 fire and flame, and is called \ Combustion ; if long 

 and slow, men call it ' Decay.' That the result in 

 either case is a compound substance called Carbonic- 

 acid gas, which, though invisible like one of its 

 parents, retains the obesity of the other, being so 

 heavy that it can be poured out of a tumbler, like 

 water. 



So much for ■ Oxygen' and < Carbon ; ' two sub- 

 stances so common and plentiful, that if a person 

 should happen to say that one-half the world is 



the 



Chemistry (itself a word more thoroughly bad 



far-fetched origin that for all useful pun^T!! 

 might just as well have no origin, and mean nrtL * 

 at all)-the truth is that Chemistry is a Ea^fe 

 science that dates its early growth in the blacW 

 darkness of pretentious ignorance, and to thhuW 

 it has never recovered the early taint of its peda Z 

 birth. The exquisite beauty, and chanmn- ^T 

 phcity, of the knowledge it really unfolds %* 

 reason why it has been swathed and swaddled k 

 the folds of mystery and complexity; because it k 

 the nature of man to turn just such knowledge mu 

 a ' property/ and to 



"sit like a Cormorant thus 



Hard by the tree of knowledge "— 



whose fruit he pretends to dispense. CorrutA 

 optimi est pessima ; which being rather inverted 

 than interpreted, may furnish the remark that the 

 most beantif ul things are the things which man h* 

 most disfigured. 



And so we come, by a very roundabout road, to our 

 fourth long name, which is ■ Hydrogen'*: a word not 

 simpler sounding than its three predecessors, but of 

 much simpler meaning than the last, suLgestint 

 simply the idea of Water, which it is not, but" which 

 it forms in union with Oxygen, as Air is conipoied 

 of the latter with Nitrogen : but with a mat 

 important difference in the mode of union, too 

 important to enter upon at present. 



For, the aim and object of our remarks, delayed 

 by this uneasy effort to lift, or penetrate, the fog 

 that scares away so many a goodly simple mind 

 from the study of the properties and relations of 

 Matter (the true and only purport of what 

 we call Chemistry) is to attempt an explana- 

 tion, intelligible to minds that can understand 

 simple facts when the dust and cobwebs of long 

 words are brushed off them, — of the intercom* 

 that exists between the Air we breathe and the S«l 

 we cultivate. 



It is an intercourse so immeasurably important to 

 the growth of crops, and it happens to be at the 

 present time the battle-ground of so important a 

 conflict of opinions between great men in England, 

 and great men in Germany, that it is worth knowing 

 something about, if it be only for the fun of watch- 

 ing the fight, and understanding the fight we watch. 

 Besides that, however excellent the crops a man 

 may grow without knowing ' the reason why.' it ia 

 open to all who have brains to fill, as well as pockety 

 to discover that with much less trouble than he 

 thinks, he may add to the pleasure of getting, tie 

 happiness of knowing. II. 



The sale at Hendon on Tuesday last will prore 

 to have been one of the marked days in the history 



One hundred head of 



reraging 78/. 3s. 1W. 



l and calves sold for 



of the short-horn breed. 



cattle sold for 7447 



guineas, a\ 



her upon the breast of a new element, where the 

 floats at once in graceful buoyancv, finding in an 

 instant her native home in a quarter the most 

 foreign to tier growth and nurture. But not less truly 

 beautiful is the first awakening and emancipation of 

 the mind from the slavery of mere eye- sight, into 

 the inner world and hUtor/ of Matter which che- 

 mistry at once begins to unfold. To omit one 

 or two of what mav be called the governing 



meet the student at 

 the threshold, and to which we have already made 

 allusion, such as Light, and Heat, let us go on to 

 certain other of tho*e invisible gentry that claim 

 his earliest acquaintance — namely, the constituents 

 of the atmosphere he has been, almost unconsci- 



may 

 elements of Nature which 



And now for the other hard word ' Nitrogen.' 

 Whoever can 'do the like' for this gentleman, ' he 

 is the nonpareil ' ! And let it not be thought that 

 we have awarded him the title of gentility in vain : 

 for, mystic doubts, not based on mere conjecture, 

 have at times crossed great and learned minds 

 whether he is really one of the 'simples' of Nature 

 he is held out to be. His lazy exclusiveness, and 

 reluctance to enter into society with other plain 

 bodies, his ancient pedigree, (for he was known by 

 name to the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, and 

 dates high enough to be the progenitor of Alchemy 

 and Magic,) his curiously fastidious costliness 

 and inaccessibility, so near to you in person, of 

 such gracious and bountiful-seeming presence, yet so 



^<± were unaer iz montns 01a. 1 weniy-iuui wu '-t, 



calves sold for 1837 guineas, averaging r 76£ 11* **• 



each, and of these 19 were 'under ~one year old. 



But the prices reached in particular instances *re 

 even more extraordinary than the averages, as 

 be seen in the list of prices appended to this now* 

 Oxford 11th, purchased by Mr. Takqueray at -WJ 

 Ducie's sale for 250 guineas, was here baogw °j 

 Mr. Gunter for 525 guineas. Oxford 16th, soio» 

 calf of a few weeks old at Lord Dccies sale w 



480 gain* 



\ra of Oxf<** 



180 



here sold for 





iDOlf 



ou y, breathing from the moment of his birth, and hard to get at, and last, not lea>t, a certain obscure 

 employing as an unpaid agent and workman in and baffling relations-hip he appears to enjoy with 

 every held he has tilled and every crop he has the very Thnnder and Lightning, entering caprici- 



| ously into odd combinations thereanent, generative 



of quasi-metallic, or, as an ignoramus might say, 



nho,-metaUic results, (and here we may beg pardon of 



the Herald's College, for putting a metal upon a metal, 



an illustrious error, that first detected the'Author of 



now a yearling, was purchased by iMr. tu 

 200 guineas. His dam, Oxford 11th, and 

 sold for 725 guineas, she having been bought 

 at Lord Ducie's sale for about °ne ; third watj»«^ 



price as it was 

 one which the sale on Tuesday 



thought 



grown. 



But how vexatious, at the very outset, is the old 

 pedantry of Science ! What an inheritance of evil 

 M it that our teeth should be set on edge by the 

 sour grapes our fathers have been chewing, in the 



names they have given to the very commonest | Waverley')— all this, and a great deaf more which 

 01 element*. \v e remember a worthy and simple- would only get more intolerable as it went on —mark* 

 minded clergyman who on inquiring the name this 'gentle or simple,' whichever it mav be as worth v 

 by which he should christen [he firstborn son cure, <cial notici "and stud v, if h£oSly foj tK 

 of two of his poorer parishioners was somewhat attractive reason that so many people talk so much 

 ataggered^Uhefont, .by the reply, in a grave spon- and know so little about it. Vt £ sort of chemical 



■ hynx ; and happy man be his dole' who can act 

 CEwpua to the ndd es it propounds to us, the vital 

 importance of which we shall presently see. 



But first of all, there is one more character we 

 have to introduce, and then we have done for the 



name 



grave sp 



f - . , , , •*«•/ but being a man 



of presence of mind and decision he summarily dealt 

 with the case by saying after the thought" of an 

 instant xVmseMe! John: I shall bap.i him 

 'John !' Every practical iarmer must «.-;.>, 4W 



an enormous price as it was then thoug » 

 one which the sale on Tuesday of herself ana ^ 

 produce has certainly more than J ustltie ?;L^ 

 competition for this family of short-horpe vrja 

 led to these extraordinary prices lay chwjy ' ^ 

 Mr. Gonter and Messrs. Becab and Alow» 

 New York. Mr. Gunter is now the o^je 

 more of the two fashionable short-horn »^fo 

 Duchesses and Oxfords— than any other ""J^rf 

 the country ; and though they have been -^ ^ 

 at enormous prices, they will doubtless a . *£ 

 repay their cost, while American^ ana , 



TW 



■Miners 



. is* 



very practical farmer „„„ 



that gentleman had presided at the Font 



of present with ' proper names' ; 



cW,„y; far H b,„ iks ,he very fat fa^" [ ff STJSu W^l£7fSH 



-improper enough, 



ance of 



judgment unite in attributing to them » 

 qualities which they undoubtedly posse . 

 Americans carried off Minerva 2<i ana - ^ ^ 

 4th, at 140 guineas each; also VicWrw. ^ jj 

 - ! -— ; Surprise, at 80 guineas; I,el y' bef ^ 

 guineas, among the cows and hel{ers ^ he hi«k*» 

 not purchase among the bulls, 

 priced bull, Duke ofiCambndge, was v 

 by Sir C. Knightlky for 280 &%£##* 

 seventh Duke of Oxford, which has »ee 



guineas 



rch^r 



