Elementary Agricultural Chemistry: a Handbook for Junior Agricultural Students and Farmers

Abstract

TEACHERS at agricultural schools and colleges are placed in the difficult position of having to teach a branch of applied chemistry to pupils who have little time, and often less inclination, to study pure chemistry. The best method of procedure has probably not so far been found, nor has agricultural chemistry as yet fallen into the hands of the text-book writer to anything like so complete an extent as its parents on both sides. It is, however, pretty clear what the agricultural student ought to be able to do. He should have a good working conception ot chemical change, and be able to trace out the broad outlines of the great natural cycles involved in the synthesis of plant substances from carbon dioxide, water, &c., and their decomposition in the animal system or the soil with production once more of carbon dioxide, water, and other bodies. He should study the factors concerned in plant growth, the soil in its relation to the plant, and the plant, considered as food, in its relation to the animal; and, as the subject has a commercial side, he must be able to interpret the analysis of a feeding stuff or manure, and to make simple calculations involving a knowledge of the chemical composition of a few common substances. The scheme of teaching must take account of the rather special nature of the student. A young man commonly chooses agriculture as a profession because he loves the outdoor life of the farm and is of a keenly practical turn of mind, and this temperament is generally incompatible with systematic study of a subject for its own sake; he will work, however, and work hard, when his studies obviously subserve a useful end and fit in with the central idea of his life.

Elementary Agricultural Chemistry: a Handbook for Junior Agricultural Students and Farmers.

By Prof. Herbert Ingle. Pp. ix + 250. (London: C. Griffin and Co., Ltd., 1908.) Price 4s. 6d. net.