an important statement in these pages that I do not know to be reliable, 

 nor a theory advanced that my own experience has not taught me to 

 approve. 



Calling especial attention to the third and eighth chapters of the book, — 

 '* The Key-Note of Practical Farming," and *' Manures," — the only ones 

 in which the chemistry of farming is much noticed, — I would say that 

 they are the result of years of study and speculation, kneaded into shape 

 by other years of experience. 



It is sad to look back to the days when " Agriculture " was a rosy future 

 with me ; when my work was done with the regularity and precision of clock- 

 work by cheap and respectable farm hands ; when my crops were all large and 

 my cattle were all fat ; when an analysis of my soil, and a chemical ledger- 

 account with each field, kept fertility at the top mark ; and when the bal- 

 ance-sheet at the end of the year was always adding to my fortune, — and 

 then to bring my sobered gaze down over the hill-side of hard realities 

 that ended in a plain of simple " Farming," of hum-drum hard work, dear 

 labor, scant manure, small crops, bad markets, sick animals, and — the least 

 in the world — a sick heart ; with " soil analysis " an ignis-fatuus, and 

 nothing but patience and toil and skill and experience and hard study to 

 take its place. 



I make no complaint of my disappointment, for even the harder ex- 

 periences of life are not without their advantages, — when they are past, — 

 but the hope that I might turn the steps of other young farmers into 

 pleasanter paths was not the least of my motives in writing this book. 



GEO. E. WARING, Jr. 



Ogden Farnit 1870. 



