V-\ 



INTRODUCTION 



PRACTICALLY all the matter in the seven volumes of this 

 series is taken bodily from the bulletins, circulars, annual re- 

 ports, year books, and other documents of the Departments 

 of Agriculture and the Experiment Stations of the United 

 States and Canada. Quotation marks are omitted because almost 

 every paragraph would be enclosed by the marks, a useless and ex- 

 pensive step, in view of the acknowledgment now broadly made that 

 almost every paragraph is taken from such documents. Owing to the 

 fact that on some pages from five to twelve extracts are used from 

 different authorities and that the majority of the pages of the seven 

 volumes contain from two to five of such extracts, it was found cumber- 

 some and deemed useless to place in all cases the authority at the 

 conclusion of each extract. In many cases, therefore, the authorities 

 of sections, chapters or parts are grouped at the conclusion of the 

 general subject under treatment. 



When the Secretary of Agriculture learned the scope of this 

 work, he issued directions to Mr. AT nold, Chief of the Division of 

 Publications, to supply the Publishers with a free copy of every docu- 

 ment desired that was in possession of the Department of Agriculture 

 and was available. This direction was faithfully carried out and 

 thousands of documents bearing on every subject of American hus- 

 bandry were delivered to the offices of this Company in Washington, 

 D. C., and used in making the abridgments as shown on almost every 

 page herein. Many duplicates were likewise kindly furnished by Mr. 

 Harding and Mr. Cleary, which act saved the Publishers from the 

 heavy cost of having to copy many thousands of words to avoid for- 

 cing compositors to set from both sides of printed pages. Documents 

 which were out of print at the Department and which were thus not 

 available for free distribution there, were purchased from the Super- 

 intendent of Documents to supplement the treatment of subjects not 

 fully covered by the available documents of the Department. 



The authorities of the Dominion of Canada and of the Provin- 

 cial Experiment Stations, in response to requests for documents on 

 all subjects of agriculture, promptly and freely forwarded bulletins, 

 circulars, annual reports and other records, bound and unbound, and 

 kindly and freely gave the Publishers every facility to represent suit- 

 ably in these volumes the splendid progress that has been made by 

 the Dominion in modern agriculture. How well this act of the Do- 

 minion authorities was appreciated is shown by the hundreds of ex- 

 tracts taken literally from the documents thus furnished, for all of 

 which favors the Publishers herewith make most grateful acknowl- 

 edgment. Many documents came from Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, 



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