Elements of Agricultural Chemistry

Thomas Anderson, professor of chemistry in the University of Glasgow and chemist to the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, wrote this book, whose title page is dated 1860. His preface says it offers the farmer a concise outline of the general principles of agricultural chemistry. He calls it strictly elementary and says he has avoided technicalities so that readers unacquainted with chemistry can follow it.

One passage describes a substance formed when vegetable matter burns and in respiration, fermentation and decay, and so given off from dung and compost heaps. Others note that hydrogen occurs in nature only in combination, chiefly as water, and that nitrogen forms about 79 per cent of the atmosphere and is very inert. A discussion of ammonia calls it a special manure, and says that a soil cropped until it yields nothing has lost its available mineral nutriment. The index lists subjects such as Peruvian guano, Patagonian guano, pea-nut cake, peat as a manure and phosphate of lime.