217 
REVIEWS. 
THE NATURAL LAWS OF HUSBANDRY * 
I T is too true that men are apt to he led away by the assertions of 
others on whose judgment and intellectual capacity they rely ; and 
since we very frequently find that those who are most dogmatic in their 
enunciation of certain views are exactly those who have given the subject 
connected with those views the least consideration, it results that they 
who put their trust in them, find, at the eleventh hour, that they have 
been lamentably deceived. So it is with the agriculturists of England. 
Being, as a rule, men who from their education, or rather from the 
entire absence of education, are incapable of conceiving an idea of any- 
thing in the abstract, are totally devoid of powers of generalization, 
and hence averse to all which borders on theory, they are easily carried 
away by any statement which emanates from what they delight in calling 
“ practical men.” This is no mere supposition. It is familiar to every 
one who has attempted to explain to the commonplace farmer, that his 
crops grow in obedience to certain fixed laws, and that they, like his cattle, 
must be fed with such a form of food as is best suited to their require- 
ments, that a theoretical illustration of even the simplest class is uncon- 
genial to an agriculturist’s mind. This being the case, it follows that, if 
we desire to establish a better state of things in those countries, if we 
would raise the farmer (we do not allude to the country gentleman) from 
his present degraded condition, and if we would regard the future welfare 
of this country as of importance, then there is but one remedy — to educate 
the agriculturist to a thorough knowledge of the theory of his profession. 
This is what the great German baron has essayed to do ; this is what he 
has toiled, during the last sixteen years, to achieve. The direct result of his 
labours is now before us, in the form of a work which, while rendered in 
a style of English intelligible to any person of ordinary education, is at 
the same time as accurately scientific as a thorough knowledge of present- 
day chemistry could accomplish, and as profoundly philosophic as any 
literary production of Baron Liebig’s might be expected to be. The 
volume is divided into twelve chapters, and the whole subject is treated in 
a most comprehensive and, we should think, exhaustive manner. The 
first chapter relates to the physiology or life-history of the plant, and in 
it are discussed not only the chemical conditions of vegetable life, but also 
* “ The Natural Laws of Husbandry .” By Justus von Liebig. 
Edited by John Blyth, M.D., Professor of Chemistry in Queen’s 
College, Cork. London : Walton & Maberly. 1863. 
