“ Indeed, as he himself said afterwards, it was a wretched time for chemistry in Germany. No laboratories were accessible to ordinary students, who had to content themselves with what the universities could give in the lecture-room and the library, and though both at Bonn and Erlangen Liebig endeavoured to make up for the deficiencies of the official instruction by founding a students’ physical and chemical society for the discussion of new discoveries and speculations, he felt that he could never become a chemist in his own country. ”

“ Of the carbon dioxide and ammonia no exhaustion can take place, but of the mineral constituents the supply is limited because the soil cannot afford an indefinite amount of them; hence the chief care of the farmer, and the function of manures, is to restore to the soil those minerals which each crop is found, by the analysis of its ashes, to take up in its growth. ”

“ After examination his Erlangen degree was recognized, and in 1824 he was appointed extraordinary professor of chemistry at Giessen, becoming ordinary professor two years later. In this small town his most important work was accomplished. His first care was to persuade the Darmstadt government to provide a chemical laboratory in which the students might obtain a proper practical training. This laboratory, unique of its kind at the time, in conjunction with Liebig’s unrivalled gifts as a teacher, soon rendered Giessen the most famous chemical school in the world ”