ELEMENTS

OF

AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY

BY

THOMAS ANDERSON, M.D.

F.R.S.E., F.C.S.

PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW, AND CHEMIST TO THEHIGHLAND AND AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF SCOTLAND.

EDINBURGH:

ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK.

1860.

ERRATUM.

Page 190, line 11, for "gallon" read "ton."

PRINTED BY R. AND R. CLARK, EDINBURGH.

Transcriber's note: Many of the tables needed to be split to fit spaceconstraints.

PREFACE.

The object of the present work is to offer to the farmer a conciseoutline of the general principles of Agricultural Chemistry. It has nopretensions to be considered a complete treatise on the subject. On thecontrary, its aim is strictly elementary, and with this view I haveendeavoured, as far as possible, to avoid unnecessary technicalities soas to make it intelligible to those who are unacquainted with thedetails of chemical science, although I have not hesitated to discusssuch points as appeared essential to the proper understanding of anyparticular subject.

The rapid progress of agricultural chemistry, and the numerousresearches prosecuted under the auspices of agricultural societies andprivate experimenters in this and other countries, render it by no meansan easy task to make a proper selection from the mass of facts[Pg iv] which isbeing daily accumulated. In doing this, however, I have been guided by apretty intimate knowledge of the wants of the farmer, which has inducedme to enlarge on those departments of the subject which bear moreimmediately on the every-day practice of agriculture; and for thisreason the composition and properties of soils, the nature of manures,and the principles by which their application ought to be governed, havebeen somewhat minutely treated.

In all cases numerical details have been given as fully as is consistentwith the limits of the work; and it may be right to state that aconsiderable number of the analyses contained in it have been made in myown laboratory, and that even when I have preferred to quote the resultsof other chemists, they have not unfrequently been confirmed by my ownexperiments.

University of Glasgow,
1st November 1860.

[Pg v]

CONTENTS.

Page

Introduction 1

CHAPTER I.

The Organic Constituents of Plants.

Carbon ... Carbonic Acid ... Hydrogen ... Nitrogen ... Nitric Acid ...Ammonia ... Oxygen ... Sources whence obtained ... The Atmosphere ...The Soil ... Source of the Inorganic Constituents of Plants ... Mannerin which the Constituents of Plants are absorbed 8

CHAPTER II.

The Proximate Constituents of Plants.

The Saccharine and Amylaceous Constituents ... Cellulose ... IncrustingMatter ... Starch ... Lichen Starch ... Inuline ... Gum ... Dextrine ...Sugar ... Mucilage ... Pectine and Pectic Acid ... Oily or Fatty Matters... Margaric, Stearic, and Oleic Acids ... Wax ... Nitrogenous orAlbuminous Constituents of Plants and Animals ... Albumen ... Fibrine... Casein ... Diastase 40

CHAPTER III.

The Changes which take place in the Food ofPlants during

...