PREFACE. V 



There is another class of agricultural books, b\' our best 

 writers, ou specific subjects, the objection to them being their 

 cost. In order to make a book, a great deal is put in that is 

 curious and interesting, but not practical. For instance, one of 

 our best writers has recently published a book on " Wheat Cul- 

 ture," which, while it contains nearl}^ all that is practically 

 worth knowing about the plant, is so full of other matters, as to 

 be called by the editor of one of our agricultural papers, " The 

 Romance and Curiosities of Wheat Growing." It is just the 

 avoidance of these supertluitics which is aimed at in the present 

 work, while all the practical information is retained. To obtain 

 information on all the subjects treated of, it would be necessary 

 for the farmer to purchase books upon drainage, manures, imple- 

 ments, wheat culture, grasses, sheep-husbandry, milch cows and 

 dairy farming, horses, cattle, fruit culture, market gardening, 

 and numberless other books, large and small, requiring much 

 money to purcJiase, and much time to read 



To make the present volume wholly reliable, it has been aimed 

 to record nothing but what lias been proved in practice, beyond 

 a doubt. Mere theor}- has been rejected. Some valuable ideas 

 have in all probability been thus lost, but it is the only safe 

 course ; the only course by which the farmer can be saved from 

 disastrous mistakes. The results of practice in different sections 

 and on different soils have been carefully compared with the re- 

 corded opinions of the oldest and best of our own writers ; and 

 much valuable assistance has thus been received from such able, 

 careful, and practical men as the Hon. Charles L. Flint, Secretary 

 of the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture, (to whom the 

 reader is indebted for the valuable chapters on Agricultural Imple- 

 ments and Dair}^ Stock, in this volume ;) John II. Klippart, of Ohio ; 

 S. Edwards Todd, (tf New York; Professors Norton and John- 

 ston, of Yale College; J. J. Thomas,of Alban3^,NeAY York; Norman 

 J. Coleman,of St. Louis,Mo.; Lewis F.Allen, of New York; Robert 

 Stewart, M. D., Y. S., author of " The American Farmer's Horse 



