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TO THE EDITORS AND LEADING WRITERS OF THE 

 AGRICULTURAL PRESS. 



As a feeble tribute of admiration, Gentlemen, for your valuable 

 services in advancing the great farming interest of our country, the 

 author begs leave to inscribe to you this humble effort. 



Agriculture is the acknowledged basis of our national growth and 

 prosperity. It has contributed, more than any other cause, to make 

 our country what it is, and is destined to be equally instrumental here- 

 after in making it all that it promises to be. 



But while we all perceive and readily acknowledge the great national 

 importance of this branch of industry, should we not equally recognize 

 the vast and beneficent influence exerted by the class of writers I am 

 addressing ? a class, numerically small but influentially potent, who, 

 by advancing our agriculture, have contributed more to develop our 

 material wealth and power than any other equal number of men in the 

 country. No man who has paid any attention to the progress of Amer- 

 ican husbandry during the last few years, and to the direct influence 

 exerted upon it by the class of periodicals especially devoted to it, can 

 fail to realize how much the country is indebted to the conductors and 

 writers of such journals. 



Wherever these sheets have penetrated the rural districts, the 

 effect has been immediately obvious, in the ameliorated condition of the 

 soil, in the improved quality and augmented quantity of fanning prod- 

 ucts, and in the general thriftiness, the social and moral advancement 

 of the farming population. 



