108 
On the Chemical Properties of Soils. 
(liate attention. We stand on the threshold of a wide and fertile 
field of research, and cannot hope to make any material progress 
in the practical cultivation of soils and the economy of manures 
until this subject has been to some extent investigated in a 
truly scientific manner, independently of all direct application. 
Useful applications will as assuredly follow from the sure esta- 
blishment and clear recognition of scientific principles, as good 
works from the principle of Christian love deeply engraven in 
the heart of man. 
It must, therefore, ever be the primary object of every student 
of nature to increase our knowledge of scientific facts, and thus 
to furnish the materials from which principles can be deduced, 
and upon which rational theories can be built. Perhaps no 
theory in physical science is absolutely true ; nevertheless if it 
fulfil the chief purpose of every good theory, that is, the arrange- 
ment of existing scientific facts in a comprehensive form, and 
their preservation as a common inheritance to mankind, and so 
leads to an extension of our knowledge of material things, no 
theory, however erroneous subsequent researches may prove it to 
be, can be called vain. 
No one who has carefully examined "the curious and mysterious 
properties of soils in relation to manuring matters will hastily 
propound a new theory on the nutrition of plants whilst our 
range of observation fis as limited, and our chemical facts as 
imperfectly ascertained, as is now the case. Such presumption 
would, in the end, only bring discredit upon the author. 
The description of chemical facts and the proofs upon which 
they rest is necessarily a hard and dry subject to the uninitiated. 
It is nevertheless of great consequence to preserve in a Journal 
like that of our great national Agricultural Society faithful 
accounts of original researches in agricultural chemistry, how- 
ever uninteresting and abstruse they may appear to the practical 
man. 
The present communication deals chiefly with chemical facts, 
having a more remote but nevertheless important bearing upon 
practical agriculture. I wish it to be regarded as the fii'st instal- 
ment of a series of similar researches, which will probably occupy 
me for the rest of my life, however long I may be permitted ta 
retain my energies and zeal for the promotion of agricultural 
progress. 
First Series of Experiments on the Absorption of 
Caustic Ammonia. 
The object I had in view in instituting this first series of ex- 
periments was simply to ascertain the quantity of ammonia 
which a given quantity of different soils of known composition 
