6 
MANURES. 
no, not even its terms. As a very sensible man, who 
wrote letters on botany to a young lady, said, to en 
courage his pupil, it was possible to be a very good 
botanist without knowing one plant by name, so is it 
possible to become a very good agricultural chemist, 
without knowing little more than the chemical names 
of a very few substances. You know nothing of 
chemistry, it may be, and as little of law; yet you 
will go to law, and learn some of its terms by a dear- 
bought experience. The law terms are harder to 
learn than the chemical terms. 
NAMES OF SUBSTANCES FOUND IN PLANTS. 
Now I fear that some persons, who have followed 
me thus far, will shut up the book. It is, say they, 
all stuff' book farming, and beyond us. If one may 
not understand what manure is without this learning, 
we may as well begin where our fathers ended, and 
that was where our forefathers began ages ago. By a 
little law, however, picked up as a juryman, or wit¬ 
ness, selectman, town clerk, justice of the peace, yea, 
perhaps, hearing an indictment read, men do come to 
understand what a lawyer means when he talks. So, 
too, by a little chemical talk, a man may learn what a 
chemist means when he talks of oxygen, hydrogen, 
nitrogen, chlorine, and carbon ; potash, soda, lime, 
(ah, these are old friends, the very names make us 
feel at home again,) alumina, magnesia, iron, manga¬ 
nese, and silex, sulphur, and phosphorus. Here is a 
long list. Long as it is, perhaps it will be thought 
worth learning, when you are told, that these are the 
names of all the substances found in plants, every 
substance which they want. Out of these is made 
every plant. Every part of every plant, from the 
hyssop on the wall to the mountain cedar, contains 
some or all of these. Be not disheartened. Look 
over, reader, the list again carefully, see how many 
