Lectures on the applications of chemistry and geology to agriculture / by Jas. F.W. Johnston.

  • James Finlay Weir Johnston
Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on the applications of chemistry and geology to agriculture / by Jas. F.W. Johnston. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    Thus much may be said in regard to the future hopes and prospects of scientific agriculture.* But how few practical men are acquainted with what is already known of the principles of the important art by which they Live! Trained up in ancient methods—attached generally to conservative principles in every shape—the practical agriculturists, as a body, have always been more opposed to change than any other large class of the community. They have been slow to believe in the superiority of any methods of culture which differed from their own, from those of their fathers, or of the district in which they live—and, even when the superiority could nc longer be denied, they have been almost as slow to adopt them. But the awakening spirit of the time is making itself felt in the re- motest agricultural districts ; old prejudices are dying out, and the cul- tivators of this most ancient, most important, and noblest of all the arts, are becoming generally anxious for information, and eager for improve- ment.; Two circumstances have contributed to retard the approach of this better state of things. In the first place, the agricultural interest in England has hitherto expended its main strength in attempting to secure or maintain impor- tant political advantages in the state. The encouragement of experi- mental agriculture has been in general neglected, while the diffusion of practical knowledge has been either wholly overlooked or considered subordinate to other objects. No national efforts have been made for the general improvement of the methods of culture. While for the other important classes of the community special schools have been es- tablished, in which the elements of all the branches of knowledge most necessary for each class have been more or less completely taught, and a more enlightened, because better instructed, race of men gradually trained up, no such schools have been instituted for the benefit of ihe agriculturist. In our Universities, in which the holders of land, those most interested in its improvement, are nearly all educated, a lesson upon agriculture, the right arm of the State, has hitherto scarcely ever been given.% With the practice of the art, the theory has also been Those who have access to the Journal of Ihe Royal English Agricultural Society will find in the first number a paper by Mr. Pusey, On the present state of the science of Agri- culture in England, in which much valuable information is contained, and of a more prac- tical kind than I have been able to introduce. This paper ought to he printed in a separate form, and circulated widely among those who are not members of the Royal English A«ri cultural Society. J D ° t This opinion has been confirmed by the numerous communications I have received from all parts of the country since the publication of these Lectures was announced and in which I am assured that the want of knowledge is generally felt, and a supply in a sufficient- ly elementary form desired, by all classes of ag- oulturists. I conclude, therefore, that Lie- big means the following sentence to apply to hit German countrymen : What can be ex- per.ted from the present (generation of) farmers, which recoils with seeming distrust and aversion from all the means of assistance offi-red it by chemistry, and which does not un- derstand the art of making a rational application of chemical discoveries. I do not think chemists ought in fairness to blame the practical agriculturists for not understandin lie art of applying chemical discoveries to the improvement of the culture of the land Thev must tint know what the discoveries are; and the error has hitherto been, that no steps have been taken to diffuse this preliminary knowledge. aiejjs J However satisfied young men may be to avoid the labor of additional study while at College, how many in after-life regret that their early attention had not been directed to some of those branches of knowledge which are applicable to common life Thus the la « Lord Dudley, in his letters to the Bishop of Llandaff, invariably laments, as mistakes la
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