PREFACE 



AGRICULTURE is the most fundamental of all indus- 

 tries, the foundation and condition of civilized exist- 

 ence. The naturally growing fruits, roots, and other 

 eatable products of forests and plains and the wild 

 game and fishes of streams and seas are everywhere 

 found to sustain only a roving and more or less savage 

 population, few in numbers and failing to progress 

 from century to century. Agriculture makes it pos- 

 sible for thousands to live comfortably where previ- 

 ously only a few individuals managed to obtain a scanty 

 living without it; and, as agriculture is improved, 

 still more people are able to live within a given area 

 without warring over the means of existence. Mining 

 and all the other important industries would quickly 

 cease were agriculture to cease even for a short time, 

 as they are sometimes obliged to do in India and else- 

 where for lack of rain or irrigation water. 



Improvement in agriculture, then, means the im- 

 provement of civilized existence, not alone of the 

 farmer but of the world at large. And now that the 

 increased means of communication and commercial 

 intercourse has brought all the peoples of the earth 



