TEXT-I300K OF AGIilCULTUKE. 691 



may read and study in the .schoolroom what tlioy will practice when 

 they become men. They now i-ead the ' Knolish Reader' or some other 

 collection that they do not undei\stand or feel any interest in, and 

 which, the worst of all, ne\ei" gives them one useful idea for the prac- 

 tical l)iisiness of life." Taylor was editor of the monthly Conunon 

 School Assistant and author of The District School or National Edu- 

 cation, the latter designed "to show what our common schools now 

 are, what they ouj^ht to be, and how tlu^ peo[)le may make them such." 

 His Farmer's School Book starts out with oeneral discussions of phys- 

 ical science, but soon passes into consideration of farm practic(^ and 

 manage niont of specific crops. The chapter on hemp was written by 

 Henry Clay. 



The third book appears to have l)een Judi;(» BueFs adaptation of 

 General Armstronj^'s Treatise on At^riculture, 1.S39. There is no 

 internal evidence that this work was designed for the schools, althouj^h 

 it was adaptable to that use, but it was one of Harpers' Scho(d Dis- 

 trict Library. The ori<>inal edition was pu))lished anonymously "by 

 a practical farmer" in 182U in Al))any. It first ran as a serial in the 

 Albany Argus, Judge Buel's paper, in l.Sl!». (ien. John Armstrong 

 Avas a soldier in the Revolution and, subsecpicntly, United States Sen- 

 ator, minister to France, and Secretary of War. The book under con- 

 sideration treats the subject almost wholly- from the point of view of 

 farm practice, and was an excellent treatise for its da3\ 



Judge Bucl's Farmer's Companion, or Essays on the Principles and 

 Practice of American Husbandry, was jiublished in 1839. The volume 

 was also incorporated in The School Library, Vol. XVI, a series 

 "published under the sanction of the board of education of the State 

 of Massachusetts." The book does not appear to have been intended 

 as a pupil's text, however. 



The first distinct and professed indigenous American text-book or 

 treatise on agricultuiv appears to have been Alonzo Gra^-'s Elements 

 of Scientific and Practical Agriculture, pul)lished in New York in 

 1842. Its chief theme is life, the "vital principle," and it is the full- 

 est analysis of the biological type of presentation which has 3'et 

 appeared in our text-book literature. It gives an excellent outline, 

 also, of the chemical wisdom of the time. It is too technical even for 

 our present-day rural schools. 



The s(>cond real text-book treatise appeal's to have been Davis's 

 Text-Book on Agricidture, copyrighted in 1S4T, but bearing the pub- 

 lisher's date of 184S. It is essentially a laboratory presentation of the 

 subject. Of the eight chapters seven are concerned mostly with 

 chemical matters, and even the eighth chapter contains little discus- 

 sion of farm sul)jects. A long appendix is devoted to a discussion of 

 insects injui-ious to xcgetatii^n. Davis's opening sentence is this: 

 "Chemistry is that science which makes us acquainted with the com- 



