AGRICULTURAL ERRORS. 
171 
easy gradation to the principles of agriculture—no 
longer a mere art, but in a state of transition, and 
destined soon to become a science. When we 
consider how large a portion of our citizens are en¬ 
gaged in this noble pursuit, what immense ben¬ 
efits may accrue to the country, by improvements 
in it—how must these improvements depend upon 
the union of science with practical farming, you 
can not fail to realize—how much is due from you 
to whom so much is given. Let me hope, gentle¬ 
men, you will encourage among farmers a taste 
for agricultural reading; that you will endeavor to 
break down the prejudices which practical farmers 
too often entertain against science as applied to 
their business, and that you will encourage them 
to give their children a good scientific agricultural 
education. I hope the day is not distant, when 
the legislature of this state will establish a school 
of agriculture. 
You are now young, when you become old, the 
instinctive propensities of our nature given to man, 
when his Maker placed him in the garden of Eden, 
now kept in abeyance by other pursuits, will be¬ 
come predominant, and you will seek to pass the 
decline of your lives in company with Ceres and 
Flora. I can not wish you a happier lot than this, 
so fitted as it is for that tranquillity of mind, which 
leads to suitable preparation for our final destiny. 
We have been permitted to make the above ex¬ 
tract from the manuscript copy of the excellent ad¬ 
dress of Dr. Stevens, President of the College of 
Physicians and Surgeons of this city, at the annual 
Commencement, on the 14th of March last. We 
trust that the able and accomplished President of 
this Institution, will follow up these hints at his 
next annual address, with others on the propriety 
of the profession, when practising in the country, 
paying some attention to the pathology of animals. 
In the general absence of well-educated Yeterinary 
Surgeons, physicians may do great good, and save 
many a poor animal much pain, and severe losses 
at times to the farmer; and in thus acting, they 
need not fear either degrading themselves or their 
profession, for in Europe nearly as accomplished 
an education is demanded of the Veterinary Sur¬ 
geon, as of those practising among their own spe¬ 
cies. 
AGRICULTURAL ERRORS. 
So many glaring scientific errors find their 
way into our agricultural works, that I am 
afraid, unless rectified at home, they will make 
us the laughing-stock of Europeans. If these 
works had only a limited local circulation, such 
errors might be amusing, yet would scarcely be 
deserving of notice; but as many copies of our 
works on agriculture find their way to other coun¬ 
tries, and are there perused by scientific readers, 
we must either criticise them among ourselves, or 
we shall be considered totally ignorant of the sci¬ 
ences we so glibly write about. I am sorry to un-1 
I dertake so disagreeable a task, and can assure the 
writers of the articles I am about to review, that 
I am totally unacquainted with either of them, 
and that my only object is to save the credit of our 
common country. 
The first article I shall notice, is one written by 
Mr. Noyes Darling, of four columns, inserted in 
the Albany Cultivator for March, on lime as a 
destroyer of sorrel. Mr. Darling is correct in sup¬ 
posing that oxalic acid is formed from the elements 
of the plants in which it is found ; but in error 
when he gives hydrogen as one of the elements of 
oxalic acid, this acid being composed of only two 
elements, carbon and oxygen. It is still more 
strange that Mr. Dana should prescribe lime as a 
cure for the growth of sorrel, when it exists in 
this plant as an oxalate of lime, and could not 
grow in any soil unless lime was present. 
The juice of sorrel changed by a process, well 
known by the operative chemist, to oxalate of pot¬ 
ash, has been much used in the arts, and sells at 
a high price. I have sold it at $3 per pound, and 
it is now selling at $1. There are about forty 
species of plants which contain oxalate of lime; 
four species that contain binoxalate of potash, and 
only one known species (the cicer parietinum) 
that contains uncombined oxalic acid. If this cicer 
could be cultivated in any part of our country, it 
would afford a valuable acquisition to the useful 
arts, in supplying us with oxalic acid, which is 
now imported at a cost of nearly 50 cents per 
pound. 
A few drachms of oxalic acid will operate as a 
violent poison; but a small quantity with sugar 
and water forms a pleasant cooling beverage, and 
is considered a fine antiseptic. I have drank ma¬ 
ny gallons of oxalade, and punch made sour with 
oxalic acid. 
I had written thus far when a friend handed me 
a work called the Muck Manual, by Mr. Dana, 
requesting me to review it. I had not read many 
pages before a suspicion hashed on my mind, that 
this work had been perused and taken for au¬ 
thority by Mr. Pell, and hence several errors in 
his article on “ Charcoal and its Uses,” in the 
April number of the Agriculturist. This shows 
the importance of professional writers being cor¬ 
rect, and no excuse can be made for Messrs. Dana 
and Darling. They are my superiors in literature, 
and the scientific errors they have fallen into, par¬ 
ticularly Mr. Dana, who I am informed is an an¬ 
alytical chemist, must arise from a want of due 
investigation. 
I believe Mr. Dana is considered a good analyser 
of mordants and coloring-matter, and is of course 
a valuable citizen in such pursuits; yet it struck 
me with no little surprise, that a practical chemist 
should have adopted so wild and unsupported a 
theory. Chemistry is altogether a practical sci¬ 
ence, and the first lesson I learned forty years ago, 
was never to give credence to any theory that was 
not supported by direct and well-ascertained ex¬ 
periments. This axiom was established by the 
chemical savans of France in the early period of 
the science, and when departed from, the chem¬ 
ical world will produce theories as wild and un¬ 
stable as were those of the old alchemists. 
