Justus Liebig to Faraday   27 July 1856

Münich 27 July 56.

My dear Faraday,

I beg you to excuse myself for having so longtime delayed to answer your letter of the 1 May¹ for which I beg to accept my best thanks.

Since last year I find myself engaged in a very stupid controversy with Mr. Lawes of Rothamsted about Scientific principles in Agriculture. Having never read or understood my book² he pretended to demonstrate by experiments that the Science of Chemistry could do nothing for practical Agriculture and that the knowledge of Laws of nature could not be of any use in practical farming! Mr Lawes is, I believe, a manufacturer of manure and by my disputing his scientific position and showing that his conclusions are erroneous he thinks to loose his customers; This is, I fear, the reason that he went so far as to attack my good faith in an Article (No 36) of the Journal of the Roy. Agric. Soc. Of England³. I was obliged to write an article for the Same journal, which will appear in the No. of July⁴ and in which I hope to have succeeded in uprooting his errors.

You have had always the good fortune, to find for all your works and investigations a well disciplined public which acknowledged grateful[l]ly and accepted with thanks the immense services you rendered to Science and to mankind; but in Chemistry and its applications to Agriculture and Physiology I have to deal with a set of people without any Scientific education and who know, or believe to know, all these things better than the natural philosopher himself. I despair sometimes to be able to convince them of the most simple truth. It is that sort of people who believe on walking tables and all kind of nonsensical theory’s. Being occupied during ten years with other researches I did not care about the opposition of the so called practical men, but last year I became aware that they fighted with a Shadow and that they failed to discern the truth which my theory contained. I should never have thought to answer any articles, if the questions which are involved in that controversy were not of such great importance to mankind. We are advanced far enough to decide the question about the right way to produce more corn and more meat from the same surface of land. The fortune and income of most people depend on them.

I should think that you could do a great deal of good by a lecture “on the methods to apply Scientific principles to practical purposes” next winter in the royal institution! Perhaps you have the goodness to read my article in the Journal of the Roy. Agr. Soc. And it is possible you find matter in it for such a lecture. If my conclusions and inferences have your assent, I am sure all this opposition will cease and a truly scientific agriculture will commence⁵.

Mr Fr. Barnard is an excellent young man we like him very much and are always glad to see him in our house; he is not coming so often as we wish it and it requires mostly a formal invitation to see him; he is to[o] strict an Englishman. The german custom is to go to take thea [sic] with his friends without these ceremonies. Mr. Barnard is very assiduous and I hear that his professors are much satisfied by his progress. We talk very often of you, his aunt and his aimable Sister. Pray express my kindest regards to them!

Dear Faraday I am with all my heart | Yours very Sincerely | Justus Liebig

(Excuse my horrible English!)