,
the Earl of Dundonald, and possesses especial interest from the fact
that it is the first book in the English language on agricultural
chemistry. The full title is as follows: 'A Treatise showing the
Intimate Connection that subsists between Agriculture and Chemistry.'

In his introduction the author says: "The slow progress which
agriculture has hitherto made as a science is to be ascribed to a want
of education on the part of the cultivators of the soil, and to a want
of knowledge, in such authors as have written on agriculture, of the
intimate connection that subsists between the science and that of
chemistry. Indeed, there is no operation or process not merely
mechanical that does not depend on chemistry, which is defined to be a
knowledge of the properties of bodies, and of the effects resulting from
their different combinations."

In quoting this passage Professor S. W. Johnson remarks:[7] "Earl
Dundonald could not fail to see that chemistry was ere long to open a
splendid future for the ancient art that had always been and always will
be the prime supporter of the nations. But when he wrote, how feeble
was the light that chemistry could throw upon the fundamental questions
of agricultural science! The chemical nature of the atmosphere was then
a discovery of barely twenty years' standing. The composition of water
had been known but twelve years. The only account of the composition of
plants that Earl Dundonald could give was the following: 'Vegetables
consist of mucilaginous matter, resinous matter, matter analogous to
that of animals, and some proportion of oil.... Besides these,
vegetables contain earthy matters, formerly held in solution in the
newly-taken-in juices of the growing vegetables.' To be sure, he
explains by mentioning in subsequent pages that starch belongs to the
mucilaginous matter, and that on analysis by fire vegetables yield
soluble alkaline salts and insoluble phosphate of lime. But these salts,
he held, were formed in the process of burning, their lime excepted; and
the fact of their being taken from the soil and constituting the
indispensable food of plants, his lordship was unacquainted with. The
gist of agricultural chemistry with him was, that plants 'are composed
of gases with a small proportion of calcareous matter; for although this
discovery may appear to be of small moment to the practical farmer, yet
it is well deserving of his attention and notice.'"

_De Saussure._

The