PREFACE. 



THE following work is strictly \vhat it professes to be 

 A TEXT BOOK. It is not intended so much to teach the Sci 

 ence and Art of Agriculture, as to enable the Teacher to teach. 

 In its character it is suggestive, and makes no pretensions to be 

 a perfect Encyclopaedia of the subject. At the same time it is 

 believed that there is no point so far as the work professes to 

 go on which it is important that the Teacher should enlarge, 

 or the student leara, to which they will not find their attention 

 directed. Nor will the experienced Farmer, or the general rea 

 der fail to be interested. Practice and science are brought to 

 gether, and compelled to assist each other; instead of being un 

 naturally divorced, as, unhappily, they have too long been in 

 this department of knowledge. 



This little work is the offspring of a sorely felt necessity. A 

 year since, the Author was unexpectedly called upon to deliver 

 a course of lectures on Agriculture, before the newly organized 

 &quot; Scientific Department&quot; of the University of Michigan. He 

 had for some years studied the subject, both practically and 

 theoretically, and collected a valuable library in connection with 

 it. But this he had done merely for his own gratification, with 

 out any direct object in view, and certainly with no intention of 

 ever becoming a teacher of Agriculture. A sense of duty to 

 the public would not allow him to refuse the invitation ; and 



