1849. 
THE CULTIVATOR 
331 
The Relations of Science to Agriculture. 
We copy the following from the last No* of the Jour¬ 
nal of the Transactions of the Highland and Agricultural 
Society of Scotland. It was written by Dr. Anderson, 
chemist to the Society, and its practical and common 
sense view of the subject, will commend it to the at¬ 
tention of our readers: 
The application of science to agriculture is a subject 
on which so much has been said and written, during the 
last few years, and which has occupied so much of the 
attention of the agricultural public, that it may seem 
almost superfluous to add to what has already been 
penned. It has always appeared to me, however, that 
there are still many points of great importance for the 
practical man to consider, which have either never been 
sufficiently prominently presented to his view, or which, 
from their being less striking, or perhaps less enticing, 
have been allowed to fall into the background, and have 
hence led to a certain amount of misapprehension in re¬ 
gard to the exact position of science and its relations 
to practice. Such misapprehensions it would be desira¬ 
ble under any circumstances, to dispel; but now that 
the Highland and Agricultural Society has actively ta¬ 
ken up the prosecution of agricultural chemistry, it is 
of primary importance that the farmer and the chemist 
should come to a distinct understanding with regard to 
the mutual bearings of scientific and practical agricul¬ 
ture—the manner in which they can be made to assist 
one another—and, what is of all others the most im¬ 
portant point, how can they be made to co-operate, so 
as to establish on a firm basis the general principles of 
agricultural science, which must necessarily be the first 
step towards the development of scientific practice. 
Under these circumstances, I have thought that I might 
advantageously refer very shortly to some of these mat¬ 
ters, and point out what we are in future to expect from 
the application of chemistry to agriculture, the more 
especially as it is not very difficult to perceive that the 
interest which attached to it has somewhat abated with 
the general public, though I believe it to be undimin¬ 
ished with our most active and intelligent practical 
men. 
This very diminution in the interest attaching to che¬ 
mical agriculture, I believe to be mainly founded on one 
of the most serious misapprehensions—serious alike to 
agriculture and to chemistry—with which we have now 
to contend ; and that is, the erroneous and altogether 
extravagant expectations which some persons enter¬ 
tained, regarding the extent and rapidity of the influence 
which chemistry is likely to exert upon agriculture. To 
hear them talk of it, one might almost imagine that 
chemistry, as by the wand of a magician, is at once to 
spread fertility over our barren moors, and raise abun¬ 
dant crops where nothing ever grew before; and that 
the chemist can by a few simple experiments, determine 
with absolute precision the circumstances under which 
the farmer must go to work, so as to produce an abun¬ 
dant crop. It needs not to be mentioned that such 
views are the exception, not the rule; but, between 
this extreme case and those likely to be fulfilled, there 
are many expectations which, with less apparent extra¬ 
vagance, are equally beyond the powers of chemistry in 
its present imperfect state, and involve questions which, 
if they ever can be answered, must await the advance 
of pure science to appoint much beyond that to which it 
has yet attained. Nor is it, perhaps, matter of much 
surprise that such expectations should have been enter¬ 
tained, as it must be admitted that the general public 
is not in a position to estimate correctly the extent of 
the benefits which it is likely to derive from the appli- 
cation of science to any art; and, unfortunately, in the 
present instance, it has been misled by the far too lau¬ 
datory terms in which the application of chemistry to 
agriculture, was talked of some years ago. Hopes 
were then excited which, to those intimately acquaint¬ 
ed with chemistry, it was very evident could not be sus- 
tained, but which the enthusiastic embraced at once; 
only, however, when they were disappointed, to aban¬ 
don as worthless, the whole science itself, along with 
the unobtrusive modicum of real progress, which was 
altogether lost sight of amidst the ruins of their lofty 
expectations. Even those who take a more cautious 
and sober view of the progress of agricultural chemis¬ 
try are apt to be led into expectations greater than 
facts justify, by the extraordinary progress which the 
application of chemistry has effected in some other arts, 
such, for instance, as the art of bleaching and the ma¬ 
nufacture of soda, which chemistry, by one great stride, 
raised from the state of primitive rudeness in which 
they had existed almost from time immemorial, to one 
at least of comparative perfection. Such facts may 
lead us at first sight to expect that the application of 
chemistry to agriculture should be followed by equally 
rapid results; but a little further consideration seems to 
point out a very material difference between such arts 
and the cultivation of the soil. In such a case as the 
manufacture of soda, for instance, and indeed in all 
those in which the application of science has produ¬ 
ced the most marked results, the chemist has presented 
to him for solution a definite and circumscribed problem, 
involving the mutual relations of some three or four 
different substances; and he is able to trace the chan¬ 
ges which the coal, common salt, and lime employed, 
undergo, from the commencement of the process through 
each successive step, until the soda is obtained in the 
perfect state; but in the art of agriculture each ques¬ 
tion frequently involves, not one, but many problems, 
connected with the highest and most abstruse doctrines 
of the science, in which not merely chemical forces, but 
the far more recondite phenomena of life come into play, 
and in which the investigations of the chemist are car¬ 
ried on, and his conclusions tested under the influence 
of weather, climate, and many other perturbing cau¬ 
ses. 
The extreme complexity of the problems with which 
agricultural chemistry has to deal, may be conceived 
from the fact that most plants contain from twelve to 
fifteen different substances, all essential to their exist¬ 
ence, the relations of which must be investigated be¬ 
fore definite views can be obtained regarding the chan¬ 
ges which go on in the organism of the plant. These 
relations, moreover, are far more complicated than even 
the number of the elements alone would lead us to 
suppose: the single element of sulphur, for instance, 
which does not constitute more than two or three parts 
in the thousand of most plants, exists there in not less 
than three different forms of combination, in each of 
which it is as essential to the plant as those which form 
the great proportion of its bulk. Now, it must be suf¬ 
ficiently manifest, that questions involving elements of 
such complexity are not to be solved as rapidly or easily 
as the far simpler problems of mineral chemistry, and 
that not merely on account of their superior complexity 
alone, but because, in the one case, theoretical chemist¬ 
ry sets us far on our way towards the solution, while in 
the other there is still a great gap to be filled up, a 
whole mine of scientific facts to be worked out, before 
we are in the condition to approach sufficiently near the 
comprehension of these more complicated phenomena. 
In fact, the latter are not questions of pure chemistry, 
but are intimately interwoven with vegetable physiolo¬ 
gy—so much so, indeed, that in many instances it ia 
scarcely possible to decide to which of these two scien¬ 
ces they ought strictly to belong. And it is just here¬ 
in that their great difficulty consists, for there is nothing 
more certain, than that those questions which lie, so to 
speak, on the confines of two sciences, require for their 
