It appears this year[109] that I was engaged in a pursuit entirely new to me, that of making many new and pneumatic experiments on expelling gas from soils, manures, and various other substances, in order to ascertain whether there was any connection between the quantity and species of such gas (from _Geist_, German for ghost, spirit. Authority, B. of Llandaff, _see_ Newman’s ‘Trans. of Boerhave’s Chemistry’) and the fertility of the soils from which my specimens were selected. It seems that I prosecuted this enquiry with diligence; and as it was my commencement in chemistry, I corresponded upon the subject with Dr. Priestley, and went to Cambridge for the conversation of Mr. Milner, then Professor of Chemistry in that University. The result of my experiments was very remarkable, for I decided, after a very careful deduction from the result of all my trials, that there existed a very intimate, and almost unbroken, connection between the fertility of land and the gas to be expelled from it. This was an entirely new discovery belonging to me only, and it has been quoted by many celebrated chemists in a manner which showed that they considered me as the origin of it. I sent a detail of my trials to the Royal Society, through the hands of Mr. Magellan,[110] as my paper contained some eudiometrical experiments made with the eudiometer invented by that philosopher. Mentioning to a friend what I had done, ‘You have been very foolish,’ observed the friend, ‘for depend upon it your paper will never get into the “Philosophical Transactions.”’ Expressing my surprise, I demanded the reason. ‘Why, know you not,’ he replied, ‘that there is a most inveterate hostility between Sir J. Banks and Magellan, from a violent quarrel, and Sir J. is not a man to permit anything to be printed that comes through hands offensive to him, especially as the paper is to the credit of Magellan’s instrument?’ The event proved the truth of this prediction, but this did not prevent my labours being duly appreciated by those who were the most competent judges. In the pursuit of these trials I gradually established and furnished a laboratory, sufficient for my own enquiries, at about 150_l._ expense. _l._ ‘Birmingham: Jan. 27, 1783. ‘Dear Sir,—There is no person I should serve with more pleasure than you, because there is no person whose pursuits are more eminently useful to the world. You alone have certainly done more to promote agriculture, and especially to render it reputable, in this country than all that have gone before you. But the little I might do to aid your investigations will be reduced to a small matter indeed by my distance from you.