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PREFACE. 



For years such a book as the • Household and Farmers Cyclopaedia" has 

 "been needed by the public, and especially by the American Farmer, but up 

 to this time nothing has appeared to supply the want. A glance at the within 

 pages will satisfy any one of the great importance of such a demand, and the 

 only wonder is, that such a book as the "Cyclopaedia" has never before been 

 published, for its value cannot be estimated by dollars and cents. 



The design was, and is, to produce a work of substantial and enduring value, and 

 •of universal application and use. To sum up, then, this book is offered as one con- 

 taining more that has been proven by long use to be of value, more that is necessary 

 for every Farmer and Mechanic to know, and more of promising novelty, than any 

 other that has ever been presented to the Farmers and Mechanics of America. It 

 is complete in every particular in which it is possible for such a book to be com- 

 plete; and, in addition to this, it is sufficiently suggestive in many other respects to 

 induce its readers to read more, to think more, to experiment more, and to become 

 more intelligent and more successful in the management of their business, as well as 

 really happier and wiser men and women. 



In its editing and compiling great care has been taken to avoid all difficult, tech- 

 nical and scientific terms, and to make the language so simple, as to insure its value 

 as a useful and reliable work for every day reference. 



To compile such a work as this, is an amount of labor that one not familiar with 

 such work would hardly believe, or even imagine. Thousands of works have been 

 examined, public libraries and private book-cases overhauled, and the writings of 

 noted writers, both in this cour.try and Europe, have been carefully compared, and 

 selections made from the best. Where selections of a reliable nature could not be 

 found, original articles by the most scientific men in the country were obtained, thus 



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