The Neglect of Chemistry by Practical Farmers. 413 



successful crop may have been grown ; for his soil may, perhaps, 

 have a superabundance of the very mineral ingredients which the 

 manure m question principally restores to the <2:round ; whilst in 

 those cases wherein it succeeded, it is reasonable to suppose that 

 there might have been a total deficiency, or, at any rate, that the 

 quantity present was not in a fit state to be assimilated by plants, 

 not to mention the immense influence which a difference of season 

 exercises upon the amount of produce, as Mr. Lawes has clearly 

 demonstrated in one of his contributions to the Journal of the 

 Royal Agricultural Society of England. 



The above considerations show some of the many practical 

 difficulties that occur to impede the onward progress of the 

 science of agriculture on sure and unerring principles. 



Cause 4 — viz. : "The want of some work wherein might be col- 

 lected the various trustworthy results obtained by different 

 chemists, at present scattered through so many works," has the 

 effect of retarding the progress of the science, by the perpetuation 

 of error ; for from the fact of the farmer not possessing the means 

 of selecting or comparing diff'erent analyses, he naturally places 

 implicit belief in the correctness of those that may happen to 

 come under his notice, although perhaps they may have long 

 since been shown to be quite erroneous, and unworthy of credit. 

 In some of the popular periodicals connected with agriculture I 

 have even found that those who profess to instruct the farmers 

 are often content to take the first analyses that come to hand, 

 without troubling themselves to inquire as to their correctness. 

 But supposing the farmer to be so fortunate as to have access to 

 trustworthy data, the evils arising from 



Causes 5, 6, viz. : "The labour and knowledge necessary to recal- 

 culate some analyses into a practical form;" and " the impossibility 

 of making any use of others ;" are sufficient to counteract most of 

 the good that may be supposed to arise from this circumstance, 

 as the two following examples will show : — 



Suppose the case of two chemists, having each analysed a 

 portion of the same piece of limestone, to determine the quantity 

 of lime in it, one of whom recorded his results in the form of 

 salts, whilst the other gave the amount of proximate elements ; 

 the one might then state that he had found 9S per cent, of carbo- 

 nate of lime in the stone in question, but the other would say 

 that it contained 55 per cent, of lime. Now the reader unac- 

 quainted with chemistry would naturally infer that the one 

 analysis indicated twice the amount of lime of the other, although 

 they are merely two different forms for expressing the same 

 result. And even if we suppose him to know a little of che- 

 mistry, he Avould not be able to compare the two results until he 



