EDITOR'S PREFACE 



This book is designed for use in high-schools, academies, 

 and normal schools, and in colleges when only a short 

 time can be given to the subject. It is also hoped that 

 it may be useful to the farmer or general reader who 

 desires a brief survey of agriculture 



So far as I know, this is the first text-book of agri- 

 culture appearing in North America in a generation, that 

 is distinctly of high-school grade. More than fifty text- 

 books of agriculture have appeared in the United States 

 and Canada since Daniel Adams published his "Agricul- 

 tural Reader" in Boston, in 1824, and J. Orville Taylor 

 published his "Farmer's School Book" in Albany and 

 Ithaca, N. Y., in 1837. Nearly twenty of these appeared 

 before the founding of the colleges of agriculture, on the 

 land-grant act of 1862. A number of these early books 

 were distinctly scientific in treatment, and were adapted 

 to academies and other schools of the rank of our present 

 high-schools. 



With the founding of the chain of agricultural colleges, 

 the more full scientific treatment of the subject, so far 

 as school texts are concerned, seems to have been reserved 

 for these institutions, and the text-books became largely 

 popular and elementary. This has been the epoch of the 

 popularizing of science in the schools. The last of the 

 extended and technical school texts appears to have been 

 Pendleton's, in 1875. The large number of popular and 



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