X PREFACE. 



they have been. Could I then have caught but a glimpse of 

 the beneficent possibilities of a farmer's life could I have 

 realized that he is habitually (even though blindly) dealing 

 with problems which require and reward the amplest knowl- 

 edge of Nature's laws, the fullest command of science, the 

 noblest efforts of the human intellect, I should have since 

 pursued the peaceful, unobtrusive round of an enthusiastic 

 and devoted, even though not an eminent or fortunate, tiller 

 of the soil. Even the little that is unfolded in the ensuing 

 pages would have sufficed to give me a far larger, truer, 

 nobler conception of what the farmer of moderate means 

 might and should be, than I then attained. I needed to 

 realize that observation and reflection, study and mental 

 acquisition, are as essential and as serviceable in his pursuit 

 as in others, and that no man can have acquired so much 

 general knowledge that a farmer's exigencies will not afford 

 scope and use for it all. I abandoned the farm, because I 

 fancied that I had already perceived, if I had not as yet 

 clearly comprehended, all there was in the fanner's calling; 

 whereas, I had not really learned much more of it than a 

 good plow-horse ought to understand. And, though great 

 progress has been made since then, there are still thousands 

 of 'boys, in this enlightened age and conceited generation, 

 who have scarcely a more adequate and just conception of 

 agriculture than I then had. If I could hope to reach even 

 one in every hundred of this class, and induce him to pon- 



