eat 
68 
This is undeniably irue, but agriculture will always remain an art if we 
consider that art deals with practical ways and means to accomplish certain 
things. 
Tis: 
Science again gives us the explanation of these ways and means, so that 
really art and science haye to werk hand in hand to maintain agriculture in its 
- present eminent position. 
The science which helped agriculture more than any other is undoubtedly 
chemistry. 
No other science, electricity perhaps excepted, has mede such wonderful 
progress in the present century as chemistry; and there is hardly, in the present 
time, any occupation cr industry in which chemistry does not play an 
— important part. 
Let us briefly consider what chemistry is. You all know that man, witlt 
all his science and wonderful appliances, has never and will never succeed in 
creating matter, any more than he can destroy existing matter. 
All the bodies which surround us, the air we breathe, the food we consume, 
_ the clothes we wear, the earth on which we grow our crops, are all composed of 
a few distinct constituents, which at present cannot be further decomposed 
and which are called elements. 
Only a few of these elements exist in nature in an uncombined state. The 
~most of them are combined in such a wonderful manner that no one would 
suspect such combination, judging only by the ordinary senses. Who would, 
_ for instance, suppose that starch, cane-sugar, and cotton are simply composed 
of carbon and of water! 
The science of chemistry has to come to our aid to teli us the nature of 
these combinations, and which elements take part in their formation. 
Chemistry further tells us in which manner we ean force the elements or 
combinations to unite and to form new bodies. 
Chemistry also proves that all things are formed out of pre-existing 
matter. A plant which grows is not a creation but simply a transformation of 
‘other existing bodies. Again, when a plant decays in the ground, or when a 
tree stump is burned, the bodies which took part in their formation are not 
lost but simply transformed into other bodies which in their turn will again be 
assimilated by other growing plants. 
Emerson, in one of his essays on farming, says— 
Who are the farmer's servants? Not the Irish, nor tie coolies, but geology 
and chemistry, the quarry of the air, the water of the brook, the lightning of the 
' 
cloud, the castings of the worm, and the plough of the frost. 
That chemistry is to be the servant of the farmer is now universally 
recognised, and consequently we find amongst the staff of Agricultural 
Departments a large number of chemists. 
In the United States a very great number of agricultural experimental 
stations and agricultural colleges exist, and I may mention that, for instance, at 
the New York Agricultural Experimental Station out of a total number of 
16 officers 7 are chemists; at the South Dakota Experimental Station and 
also at the Virginia Agricultural College out of 8 officers 3 are chemists; and 
at Alabama Agricultural Experimental Station, 4 out of 11. In the southern 
colonies, besides the agricultural colleges and experiment farms with their staff 
of fexperts, exist agricultural! laboratories with chemists in charge and seyeral 
assistants. 
The work to be carried out at an agricultural laboratory is very large and 
of a varied nature, and consists chiefly in the following :— 
Analyses of soils, 
Analyses of waters, chiefly irrigation waters. 
Analyses of manures. 
Analyses of foods and feed-stufts. 
Analyses of dairy products. 
5 Analyses of plants, fruits, and grains. 
