iv PREFACE. 



Two of the greatest problems of the present time are the 

 problems of agriculture and the rural school. 



The demand is growing for definite concrete knowledge. 

 The reading circle, the class room, the extension school, the nor- 

 mal training school and the agricultural high school are ready 

 for the use of the material included in this book. 



The aim of this book is to help solve the farm and school 

 problem in serving some of the following purposes : 



1. It contains the important facts of agriculture as proven 

 and demonstrated by the leading Agricultural Experiment Sta- 

 tions of the United States and foreign countries as well as the 

 U. S. Government. 



2. It contains a scientific discussion of those essential facts 

 which are deemed absolutely practical in agriculture. 



3. It is an economical study of the factors of greatest in- 

 fluence affecting the various operations of the farm. 



4. It contains more than a thousand arithmetical problems 

 stated for solution, requiring a more extensive and varied 

 knowledge of mathematics than almost any other science. 



5. It shows that agriculture is a mathematical problem 

 dealing with drainage, roads, fences, mixing fertilizers, liming 

 the soil, cost of equipment, labor, farm records and farm book- 

 keeping, market quotations, profit and loss in feeding, feeding 

 balanced rations, nutritive ratios, milk records, seeding prob- 

 lems, crop yields per acre, farm statistics and farm management, 

 etc. 



6. It contains more than a thousand exercises, experiments 

 and questions, leading to research work in the sciences of arith- 

 metic, chemistry, physics, geology, botany, zoology and astron- 

 omy, as applied to experiments, observations, investigations, 

 demonstrations, philosophy, facts, tables and rules, pertaining to 

 practical agriculture. 



For convenience, the tables for reference are placed in the 

 text near the subject to which they are immediatetly related. 



The summary in each chapter brings to the student the im- 

 portant points that predominate in the subject under consider- 

 ation. 



