When the present work was first undertaken there were but few works in English dealing with its subject-matter, and hardly any which dealt with the question of Manuring at any length. During the last few years, however, owing to the greatly increased interest taken in agricultural education, the demand for agricultural scientific literature has called into existence quite a number of new works. Despite this fact, the author ventures to believe that the gap which the present treatise was originally designed to fill is still unfilled.

Of the importance of the subject all interested in agriculture are well aware. It is no exaggeration to say that the introduction of the practice of artificial manuring has revolutionised modern husbandry. Indeed, without the aid of artificial manures, arable farming, as at present carried out, would be impossible. Fifty years ago the practice may be said to have been unknown; yet so widespread has it now become, that at the present time the capital invested in the manure trade in this country alone amounts to millions sterling. It need scarcely be pointed out, therefore, that a practice in which such vast monetary interests are involved is worthy of the most careful consideration by all students of agricultural science, as well as, it may be added, by political economists.

The aim of the present work is to supply in a concise and popular form the chief results of recent agricultural research on the question of soil fertility, and the nature and action of various manures. It makes no pretence to be an exhaustive treatise on the subject, and only contains those facts which seem to the author to have an important bearing on agricultural practice. In the treatment of its subject it may be said to stand midway between Professor Storer's recently published elaborate and excellent treatise on 'Agriculture in some of its Relations to Chemistry'—a work which is to be warmly recommended to all students of agricultural science, and to which the author would take this opportunity of acknowledging his indebtedness—and Dr J. M. H. Munro's admirable little work on 'Soils and Manures.'

In order to render the work as intelligible to the ordinary agricultural reader as possible, all tabular matter and matter of a more or less technical nature have been relegated to the Appendices attached to each chapter.

The author's somewhat wide experience as a University Extension Lecturer, and as a Lecturer in connection with County Council schemes of agricultural education, during the last few years, induces him to believe that the work may be of especial value to those engaged in teaching agricultural science.

He has to express the deep obligation he is under, in common with all writers on Agricultural Chemistry, to the classic researches of Sir John Bennet Lawes, Bart., and Sir J. Henry Gilbert, now in progress for more than fifty years at Sir John Lawes' Experiment Station at Rothamsted. His debt of gratitude to these distinguished investigators has been still further increased by their kindness in permitting him to dedicate the work to them, and for having been good enough to read portions of the work in proof. In addition to the free use which has been made throughout the book of the results of these experiments, the last chapter contains, in a tabular form, a short epitome of some of the more important Rothamsted researches on the action of different manures.

To the numerous German and French works on the subject, more especially to Professor Heiden's encyclopÆdic 'Lehrbuch der DÜngerlehre' and the various writings of Dr Emil von Wolff, the author is further much indebted.Among English works he would especially mention the assistance he has derived from the writings of Mr R. Warington, F.R.S., Professor S. W. Johnson, Professor Armsby, the late Dr Augustus Voelcker, and others. He would also tender his acknowledgments to the new edition of Stephens' 'Book of the Farm,' and he has to thank its editor, his friend Mr James Macdonald, Secretary to the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, for having read parts of his proof-sheets.

It is also his pleasing duty to thank his friends Dr Bernard Dyer, Hon Secretary of the Society of Public Analysts, Dr A. P. Aitken, Chemist to the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland; Professor Douglas Gilchrist of Bangor; Mr F. J. Cooke, late of Flitcham; Mr Hermann Voss of London; and Professor Wright of Glasgow, for having assisted him in the revision of proof-sheets.

Analytical Laboratory,
128 Wellington Street, Glasgow,
January 1894.