PREFACE 



THIS is less a handbook in scientific agriculture 

 than a headbook in profitable farming, but it is 

 for both, and for the cultivation of character as 

 essential to cropping. The profit is no longer 

 possible without the science, but the science must 

 either show the profit or remain under suspicion. 

 The expert, working at the Government's ex- 

 pense, can do anything with a plot of half a rood, 

 so long as he is not asked to balance the product 

 against the cost, but the practical farmer wants 

 to see the net profit on a working scale, and he 

 is right, because the final measure of science in 

 all industrial application is the economic value. 

 No other standard can be safely admitted into 

 industrial practice. 



I have passed severe examinations, written 

 successful books, edited too successful news- 

 papers, lived the life of London, died the death 

 of Ireland and come to life again, on the first 

 day ; but I have done no work, lived no life, 

 and filled no place demanding of me so much 

 breadth of knowledge, elasticity of judgment 

 and variety of action as the conduct of a once 

 wretched little farm in the West of Ireland. 

 One must insist on the experience of the retro- 

 spect, because it is so commonly assumed that the 

 farm may best be entrusted to the fool of the 



