Elements of Agricultural Chemistry

by Thomas Anderson

Elements of Agricultural Chemistry, published in Edinburgh in 1860, is Thomas Anderson's concise outline of the chemistry a farmer needed to know. Anderson, professor of chemistry at the University of Glasgow and chemist to the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, writes for readers without scientific training, avoiding technicalities where he can. He explains the organic and inorganic constituents of plants, how plants take up and transform their food, and the chemical and physical character of soils, then turns to drainage and deep plowing, the principles of manuring, farmyard and liquid manure, guano and mineral fertilizers, rotation of crops and the feeding of livestock, with tables of analyses drawn from experiments in Britain and on the Continent. The full text is available to read online in your browser on Vinteuil, and the first chapter is free.