AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY. BY W. H. H. MASON, M. D., OF MOULTONBOROUGH. The Board of Agriculture, being a novelty in this State, have had much to contend with, and none harder to overcome than the prejudices of our farmers against scientific farming operations. Many seem to think that what is not learned by a few years of experience is of but little account. For this reason it has been hard to arouse our farmers to the importance of attending and taking part in agricultural meetings. There is a foolish prejudice between labor and learning, notwithstanding they are co-workers. This prejudice, however, is yielding to the influence of the meetings that have been held over the State during the last two years. That the farming interest of our State is not up to its proper standard there is no doubt. The decimation of our population during the last decade sufficiently proves this. Neither is the profit of farming what it might be, did our farmers give more care and study to that business. We need an educated yeomanry. I do not mean to say by this that our farmers are not educated men; in one sense they are the best educated because they, like the mechanic, combine mental and physical education. There is a wide distinction between lettered men and educated men. In one direction a man who cannot read or write his own language may be educated. Everything that a man knows is education. Then again a man may be able to read and write not only his own but several languages and yet pass among the people for a blockhead. Business that requires a literary education we call professional. Those who study for professional life obtain diplomas as evidence of their proficiency. There ought to be established in every State a board of examiners, who shall be authorized to examine any one in the science of farming and give diplomas. This would raise a spirit of emulation,- what one had done another would aspire to do. Students at our agricultural colleges will obtain them, but we want them in the reach of every one who will pass a successful examination. We want an agricultural profession. That is, we want agriculture reduced to a science. There is no business on earth so intimately connected with science as that of farming, and none where science is brought so little into requisition. It is expected of the professional man that he have a correct theory, founded well upon the induction of facts. A theory may be entirely false, yet facts never lie. Science is the tracing of facts until they are established in harmonious relation. The most ennobling pursuit of science is the induction of facts through the operation of natural laws, consequently any profession or calling which brings into requisition the most chemistry has the highest stand in the sciences, for chemistry is the head of the sciences. If farming then could be ranked among the learned professions it would stand in advance of all others. Every species of grass or grain, every nutritive product of the earth in their germination, growth and maturity, are the result of chemical action; then their digestion in the stomach, their assimilation in animal tissue, their excretions and final return to earth to become again food for other plants are under the same laws. Light, heat, vaporization and its descent upon the earth in globules of rain are governed by the same power, without all of which the soil has no power to produce. I am not here to lecture upon chemistry, but it is so connected with farming operations that I feel it important to call your attention to it in this connection, so far at least as to convince every farmer of the necessity of a thorough chemical knowledge, so far as it is connected with his occupation. We cannot have perfect success without it. It is not a difficult, tiresome or uninteresting study. Rainy days and evenings spent in the study of some agricultural chemistry, instead of idleness at the village tavern or grogshops, will prove a rich investment of time, and will give a rich return. All sums in figures, however great, are made from nine simple elements, called digits. The English language in all its extensive volumes is made up of only twenty-six elements called letters, and the whole language simply depends upon the position of these simple elements. So what is on the earth and in the earth and the earth itself are made of a very few simple elements, and it is the position of these elements as they relate to each other that constitutes the diversity of the earth and its products. The plant is composed of the same elements as the soil in which it grows, the difference consisting in the change in the proportion of the elements. These primary elements are oxygen, hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen, with the metals. The only difference between the vegetable and animal is the presence of nitrogen in the animal, which the vegetable does not possess to a great extent. These simple elements are so combined as to form four simple bodies, which go to make the earth, viz: Clay, sand, lime and magnesia. These are not elements, but primitive earths; neither alone will sustain vegetation, but when properly combined form the most fertile earths. These are the debris of rock washed at some period, or disengaged by some process of disintegration. Earth and rock then are composed of the same constituents; in fact earth is disintegrated rock. Hence we may learn not to despise a rocky soil. Our farmers, many of them, turn away from rocks, sand hills and peat bogs, in disgust, whereas, in fact, they are the very sources of their wealth. They contain the exact fertilizers necessary to replenish an exhausted soil. I believe that most of farms contain all the necessary constituents to supply their wastes if properly utilized. Carlton, in "Our new way around the World," page 1, in speaking of the dry and barren sandy soil of the Isthmus of Suez, showing the effect of irrigation, says, "water turned upon the sand if long continued will bring forth vegetation, and in time make a fertile soil." This result is brought about by the decomposition of the water and its chemical action, forming oxids, acids, and as a result, silicates. New Hampshire has, I believe, all the constituents and elements within her own borders necessary to recuperate her soil. Analyze every plant and you will not find any element not existing in our soil. It only remains to be utilized. This cannot be done without study and application. Do not forget these are the inorganic elements. You must with the same care and study preserve your organic constituents by preserving all decomposed matter around your barns and sink spouts, combine the two. Lime is an indispensable constituent in all life whether vege table or animal. For the benefit of animal growth it exists largely in nature. The largest lime beds are found in Ireland. It exists in the earth in union with acids forming salts of lime; the principles of which are carbonic acid forming the carbonate of lime, and sulphuric acid forming sulphate of lime, or plaster. The first, or carbonate of lime, is the common form of lime beds, from which we obtain lime for mechanical purposes. The carbonic acid is driven off by heat (burnt lime.} The use of lime as a fertilizer consists in its décomposing power upon organic matter, such as vegetable growths, preparing them to be taken up by the plant, at the same time utilizing a certain portion of the lime for the benefit of animal growth, which feeds upon the plant. That part of the animal body which depends upon the lime is the bony frame, without which there would be no strength or hardness. Its operations are very wonderful and interesting; we trace it from its crude existence in the earth to the vegetable, thence to the animal, thence back to earth again, changing its form during its transition, sometimes existing in the form of carbonate, sulphate, phosphate, lithate, etc., according to its different requirements and different degrees of solubility. It. seems to be the connecting element of earth and vegetable and animal existence, consequently we need keep lime in some of its forms in view in treating upon agricultural chemistry. I have said it exists essentially in the bones of animals, in the shape, principally, of phosphate of lime. This being the requisite form for the constitution of bones, it follows that the decomposition of bones will form a concentrated fertilizer for another growth from the earth. A very good way to reduce the bones of animals state is to dissolve them in diluted sulphuric acid. cheap and of itself a useful constituent of the soil. be taken not to use it in its full strength, else it will act as a caustic and only char the outside, leaving the remainder unacted upon. One part of the acid to six of water will be sufficiently strong. It is best to take several weeks for this process. The harder bones may be crushed before applying the acid. By this process the sulphuric acid unites with a portion of the lime of the bones, forming a new principle, viz: the sulphate of lime or gypsum (plaster). A portion of the lime being taken away from the phosphoric acid of the bones, we have the super-phosphate and whatever of the acid remains after forming the super-phosphate becomes free, while a portion may be retained in an insoluble to a useful This acid is |