Author: John F. Hodges

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2017-11-28

Total Pages: 178

ISBN-13: 9780332128597

Excerpt from The First Book of Lessons in Chemistry, in Its Application to Agriculture: For the Use of Farmers and Teachers The science of Chemistry has been cultivated from the most remote times, yet its history for centuries might be comprised in a few pages. At one time the slave of seekers for gold, and of dreamers after an elixir which might render man proof against the shafts of death, its language was rendered purposely obscure, so as to be unintelligible to the bulk of the people. In later times again we find it but the servant of the physician, useful in compounding the drugs which he employed, and exhibiting in its menial garb little of that important character which it has since assumed, and which leads us now to regard it as the surest interpreter of nature, and one of the most powerful instruments in advancing the civilization of the world. With the advance of scientific knowledge which has distinguished the present time, the means for diffusing it over the world have also everywhere increased. The railway, itself a noble monument of what the science of the present age has accomplished, has become one of the great instruments of extending the influence of her discoveries, and is destined to accomplish far greater things than the famous highways along which the arts and civilization of ancient Rome were carried, and will yet be the means of giving light and knowledge to the remotest corners of the land. All professions have not been equally advanced by the application of scientific knowledge. Whilst some by availing themselves of its assistance have been brought to the greatest perfection, others have for years remained stationary, or have only lately received any impulse towards improvement. Among the occupations of men upon which science until very lately cast but a feeble and uncertain light, we must place the cultivation of the soil. It would occupy too much time to investigate all the causes of this strange state of things; it is, however, well known that the art of agriculture, the most ancient as it is the most important of human occupa tions, for centuries remained almost stationary and seemingly unaffected by the onward march of society. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.