1188. Chemical analysis is much too nice an operation for general purposes. _ It is not likely that many practical cultivators will ever be able to conduct the analytic process with sufficient accuracy to enable them to depend on the result: but still, such a knowledge of chemistry as shall enable the cultivator to understand the nature of the process and its results, when made and presented to him by others, is likely to be highly useful, and ought to be acquired by every man whose object is to join theoretical to practical knowledge. If it so happens that he can perform the operations of analysis himself, so much the better, as far as that point is concerned; but, on the whole, such knowledge and adroitness are not to be expected from men who have so many other points demanding their attention, and who will, therefore, effect their purpose much better by collecting proper specimens of the soils to be studied, and sending them for analysis to an operative chemist.
