326 



PROCKRDINOS OP TilK 



to place at the disposal of the Council the sum of fifty pounds a 

 year towards the expenses of an inve^til::atio^ into the Chemistry 

 of Horticulture. Fechn^ the importance of the subject, and 

 anxious to advance the cause of science by stren^hening the 

 connection between the theory and practice of (iardenine;, certain 

 Fellows of the Society expressed their readiness also to contribute 

 towards a fund for the same piir[>(>se. The j)roposal, which the 

 munificence of the noMe Duke had oriprinaled, was therefore 

 at once taken up ; and led to the formation of a Committee to 

 superintend a series of experiments on the Chemistrv of Vegeta- 

 tion and the influence exerted by various substances on the 

 growth of Plants. 



It was decided that all Subscribers to the Fund should be 

 Members of the Committee, and that the experiments should be 

 entrusted to Mr. Edward Solly, Jun'. 



Investigations of this nature are necessarily very slow, and a 

 single season is far from sufficient to enable any considerable 

 report to be made. The Committee, however, anxious to make 

 known to the Fellows of the Society, that such experiments are 

 in progress, have requested Mr. Solly to prepare for publication 

 the following statement of the general nature of his proceedings 

 during the first year. It is their intention to follow it by other 

 reports as quickly as such results shall have been obtained as will 

 justify their being made the subject of publication. 



Horticultural Chemistry has hitherto received but a small 

 share of the attention which it deserves, considering the beneficial 

 results to be anticipated from its study. Numerous isolated ex- 

 periments have been recorded, but the attempts that have been 

 made to collect the facts thus obtained, or to arrange the infor- 

 mation which may be derived from them into a useful and intelli- 

 gible system, are by no means numerous. The reason of this, 

 however, is obvious ; for when we remember that till a very 

 recent period the whole science of vegetable chemistry was en- 

 veloped in darkness and mystery, and the simplest processes of 

 vegetation were but imperfectly understood, it is hardly surpris- 

 ing, that so little use should have been made of the assistance 

 "which chemistry was capable of rendering in many of the pro- 

 cesses of cultivation, when the leading principles which regulate 

 the growth of plants, and the great chemical laws on w^hich their 

 nutrition depends, were as yet scarcely understood. 



The recent labours of chemists, amongst whom the name of 

 Liebig stands pre-eminent, have explained many of the facts pre- 

 viously incomprehensible, have disproved many of the theories of 

 former observers, and by supplying certain and accurate data to 



