PUBLISHEES' ANNOUNCEMENT. 



In announcing the publication of this book the publishers would 

 state that the claims of the author in behalf of his discoveries and 

 methods seemed, when first presented to our attention, well nigh 

 incredible. It was not until after a personal examination, at the 

 " Home on the Hillside," of Mr. Cole's system of cultivation and an 

 inspection of some of the wonderful resultant products, that we 

 became thoroughly convinced that he has practically substantiated 

 the claims set forth in this volume. 



He could not have selected a more unpromising piece of land for 

 testing the merits of " The New Agriculture." It was a steep and 

 sterile hillside of Allegany hardpan, thinly covered with a soil, 

 which was surface-washed and gullied by heavy rains and sun-baked 

 in dry weather. 



His sj'stem of culture based upon underground irrigation and 

 fertilization maintained constantly and uniformly the year around 

 by means of his own devising, after thirty years of investigation 

 and study, has transferred this waste of ground, which nobody 

 thought could be made profitably productive, into, comparatively 

 speaking, a Garden of Eden. He simply makes " The New Agri- 

 culture " a willing Handmaid to Nature. He gathers and conserves 

 in his trenches or subterranean reservoirs all the waters from dews, 

 rains and melting snows, which, after equable filtration through 

 the soil, are released at the foot of the slope in a never-failing stream 

 of pure water at spring temperature. It would seem that not more 

 than one-fifth of this fertilizing moisture is absorbed by a maximum 

 crop. Fungus, that deadly foe to root growth, is completely elim- 

 inated. Drouth is forestalled and the ground in winter no more 



