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PREFACE. 



As the title of this book suggests, the cereals have been 

 treated principally with reference to their American environ- 

 ment, although valuable foreign data have often been included. 

 This is especially true with reference to varieties, fertilization, 

 culture, harvesting, production, use and marketing of these 

 crops. It is not a monograph of experiment station literature. 

 The limits of the work have made it impossible to include some 

 valuable data. Moreover the author has deemed it his privilege 

 to protect the reader by eliminating inconclusive and inconse- 

 quential data, which must of necessity accumulate in so large 

 an enterprise as that represented by the various agencies for 

 research in Agriculture. It is hoped, however, that the reader 

 will find herein a fairly comprehensive, although concise, state- 

 ment of experimental results as well as of farm methods relat- 

 ing to the cereals in America. Reference has usually been 

 made to the station rather than to the individual for a number 

 of reasons, the most important of which is that in the culture of 

 these crops the location is frequently an important consideration. 

 With few exceptions, the illustrations in this book have been 

 drawn or re-drawn by C. W. Furlong or A. K. Dawson. The 

 author wishes to express his grateful acknowledgment to those 

 who have given him helpful suggestions, and especially to his 

 secretary, Mr. C. C. Poindexter, B. S., O. S. U. 1903, for val- 

 uable assistance rendered. 



