Fertilizers and Crops; Or, the Science and Practice of Plant-Feeding a Presentation of Facts, Giving Practical Methods for Using Fertilizers in Crop Growing, with Special Emphasis on the Reasons Underlying Their Use, and on the Conditions of Their Greatest (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III SOME FUNDAMENTAL FACTS OF CHEMISTRY1 As material for study in the case of anyone who desires to gain an understanding' of a few chemical facts of importance, and as a source of reference for those who wish to refresh their previous knowledge, we will, before continuing our study of the sources, compounds and functions of plant-food elements, present briefly some of the simpler, fundamental facts of chemical combination, which have a direct bearing on the subject of plant-foods in some of their chemical relations. We shall try to explain, necessarily in a superficial and simple way, the meaning and use of chemical symbols and names; it is desirable to get some idea, even though crude and limited, of what is meant by such terms as acid, alkali, base, salt, chemical neutralization, reaction, etc. Symbols and combining proportions of elements.?As 'a matter of convenience in saving the labor of writing in full the names of elements and chemical compounds ever)' time they are used, a kind of chemical short-hand system has been adopted, in which the name of each element is represented by a characteristic symbol, consisting of the first letter or letters of the name of the element; and where the English name differs from the Latin name, the letters of the symbol are taken from the Latin form. In the table following, we include simply those elements in which we are interested. IFor those who do not desire any knowledge of chemistry, this chapter may be omitted in reading. Fnr others who desire to become acquainted with some of the simpler fundamental facts of chemistry, such as will give them a c'earcr understanding of the various relations of plant-foods, this chapter is "ecpmmended for serious study, especially in connection with subsequent chapters. It will be we...