Genre:

Essay, Drollery

Subjects:

Agriculture, Chemistry, Horticulture

    Believes agricultural chemistry is a science that will 'eventually take the lead of all others' and gives three examples of its accomplishments. Each case makes common horticultural operations appear to be complex surgical and chemical operations. For example, it claims that the failure of potatoes to appear above the soil in a city garden 'was evidently a surgical and not a chemical case'. This induced the authors to 'resort to the spade', which eventually allowed them to get to 'the root of the disease' and find 'a small piece of potatoe, which was found to be in exactly the same condition as when it was first planted'. Subsequently the authors 'ordered magnesia for the ground, and left the rest to nature, which we have often found materially to aid our efforts'.