BOOKS FOR FARMERS. 



175 



dent may be able to judge himself of their validity and importance. 

 In many cases fulness of detail has been employed, from a convic- 

 tion that an acquaintance with the sources of information, and 

 with the processes by which a problem is attacked and truth 

 arrived at, is a necessary part of the education of those who are 

 hereafter to be of service in the advancement of agriculture.. The 

 Agricultural Schools that are coming into operation should do 

 more than instruct in the general results of Agricultural Science. 

 They should teach the subject so thoroughly that the learner may 

 comprehend at once the deficiencies and the possibilities of our 

 knowledge. Thus we may hope that a company of capable inves- 

 tigators may be raised up, from whose efforts the science and the 

 art may receive new and continual impulses. 



" In preparing the ensuing pages the writer has kept his eye 

 steadily fixed upon the practical aspects of the subject. A multi- 

 tude of interesting details have been omitted for the sake of com- 

 prising within a reasonable space that information which may most 

 immediately serve the agriculturist. It must not, however, be 

 forgotten, that a valuable principle is often arrived at from the 

 study of facts, which, considered singly, have no visible connec- 

 tion with a practical result. Statements are made which may 

 appear far more curious than useful, and that have, at present, a 

 simply speculative interest, no mode being apparent by which the 

 farmer can increase his crops or diminish his labors by help of his 

 acquaintance with them. Such facts are not, however, for this 

 reason to be ignored or refused a place in our treatise, nor do they 

 render our book less practical or less, valuable. It is just such 

 curious and seemingly useless facts that are often the seeds of 

 vast advances in industry and arts. 



" For those who have not enjoyed the advantages of the schools, 

 the author has sought to unfold his subjects by such regular and 

 simple steps, that anyone may easily master them. It has also 

 ( been attempted to adapt the work in form and contents to the 

 wants of the class-room by a strictly systematic arrangement of 

 topics, and by division of the matter into convenient paragraphs. 



' To aid the student who has access to a chemical laboratory 

 and desires to make himself practically familiar with the elements 

 and compounds that exist' in plants, a number of simple experi- 

 ments are described somewhat in detail. The repetition of these 

 will be found extremely useful by giving the learner an oppor- 

 tunity of sharpening his perceptive powers, as well as of deepen- 

 ing the impressions of study. 



' The author has endeavored to make this volume complete in 

 itself, and for that purpose has introduced a short section on the 

 The Food of the Plant. In the succeeding volume, which is nearly 

 ready for the printer, to be entitled ' How Crops Feed,' this subject 

 will be amplified in all its details, and the atmosphere and the soil 

 will be fully discussed in their manifold Relations to the Plant. 

 A third volume, it is hoped, will be prepared at an early day upon 

 Cultivation ; or, the Improvement of the Soil and the Crop by 

 Tillage and Manures. Lastly, if time and strength do not fail, 

 a fourth work on Stock Feeding and Dairy Produce, considered 



