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During the last century great and widespread changes have been made in agricultural practice-changes largely associated with the increase in the use of artificial fertilisers as supplements to the bulky organic manures which had hitherto been used. The value of certain chemical compounds as artificial manures is fully recognised, yet many attempts are being made to prove the value of other substances for the same purpose, with a view to increase in efficiency and decrease in cost. The interest in the matter is naturally great, and agriculturists, botanists and chemists have all approached the question from their different standpoints. In the following pages an attempt is made to correlate the work that has been done on a few inorganic substances which gave promise of proving useful in agricultural practice. Much of the evidence put forward by different workers is conflicting, and it is clear that no definite conclusions can yet be reached. Nevertheless, examination of the evidence justifies the hope that results of practical value will yet be obtained, and it is hoped that the analysis and coordination of the available data put forward in this book will aid in clearing the ground for those investigators who are following up the problem from both the academic and the practical standpoints.
The preparation of this handbook was undertaken because of the great lack of readily available and reliable information on the subject in English scientific literature. Many of the facts were known to a few interested persons, but many others were so scattered here and there in technical reports and journals that they were scarcely known even to expert chemists and botanists. The subject is of importance for farmers and veterinary surgeons alike, for the annual loss of stock due to poisonous plants, though not ascertainable, is undoubtedly considerable. It was felt that notes on mechanical injury caused by plants and on the influence of plants on milk might usefully be included, as in some degree related to poisoning; this has therefore been done. On the other hand, a number of cultivated plants (e.g. Rhus, Wistaria) which are poisonous have not been included because exotic and hardly likely to be eaten by stock. Fungi generally also find no place in the volume, as they are sufficiently extensive to deserve a volume to themselves, and are far less readily identified than flowering plants. The dividing line between plants that are actually poisonous and those which are only suspected is far from clear, but a division was considered desirable for the convenience of the reader, and an endeavor has been made to give a sound but brief statement as to the present information on plants poisonous to livestock in the United Kingdom, with symptoms, toxic principles, and a list of the more important references to the bibliography in relation to each plant included in Chapters II to VI (the numbers corresponding with the numbers in the Bibliography).
Vols. 1-13 include Botanical necrology for 1887-89; vols. 1-4 include section called Record of current literature.