2 INTRODUCTION 



Saskatchewan, Cape Breton, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and other 

 Provinces. 



At the commencement of the work of abridgment the officials 

 of the sixty-five or seventy Experiment Stations of the United States 

 and its insular possessions were asked to furnish as complete sets of 

 their bulletins and other documents as were available to be used in 

 the compilation of these volumes. All the stations promptly and 

 freely complied, forwarding in several instances the only numbers 

 in existence with requests to return them uninjured as soon as the 

 desired extracts had been copied therefrom. It is estimated that 

 nearly 20,000 documents were thus received, consulted and used. 

 From these documents were obtained much information and many 

 extracts on subjects which had not in all cases been covered in detail 

 by the Department of Agriculture. 



If a farmer wants the bulletin on any special subject he will have 

 to send in a majority of the cases cited to the Experiment Station 

 which issued it originally. Many of such bulletins, perhaps a majority, 

 are out of print and therefore unavailable. In any event, if a farmer 

 wants such a bulletin he will be required to pay for it, the price varying 

 from five cents to several dollars. He should write directly to the 

 Director of the Experiment Station, enclosing the price, giving his 

 name and address, naming clearly what he wants, and if the document 

 is available, he will receive it by return mail. For instance, address 

 the letter to "Director of the Iowa Agricultural Experiment Station, 

 Ames, Iowa," and name the special bulletin wanted thus: "Iowa 

 Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin No. 76." Payment for 

 documents will not be required of a farmer by the Experiment Station 

 or Stations in his own state. 



It should be noted by farmers that many of the bulletins, circulars, 

 and other documents of the United States Department of Agriculture 

 are out of print at the Department and hence are not available for 

 free distribution. The documents that are available at the Depart- 

 ment are of recent issues and are comparatively few in numbers. 

 But the Government has made other provisions to supply farmers 

 with documents that are out of print at the Department. In case a 

 document is deemed of sufficient value to warrant its re-issuance or 

 reproduction, it is republished by the Government and is kept for 

 sale by the Superintendent of Documents, an officer of the Govern- 

 ment. Approximately, there are for sale by the Superintendent 

 of Documents at the present time 3,120 documents, a complete set 

 of which will cost a farmer about $632, the price varying from 5 cents 

 to several dollars each, or an average of about 20 cents each. Many 

 of the documents thus for sale by the Government are of the greatest 

 practical value to farmers who can get them in no other way than 

 by buying them. The documents thus for sale by the Superintendent 

 of Documents were consulted by the abridgers of these volumes, and 

 scores of extracts therefrom were taken and used herein. The farmer 

 can get free from the United States Department of Agriculture all 

 documents which are available, but if he wants those issued by the 

 Superintendent of Documents or by any Experiment Station except 

 the one or ones in his own state he will have to pay for them. In 



