PREFACE. 



AFTER Gen. Armstrong had retired from public to 

 private life, and turned his attention particularly to 

 rural pursuits, he wrote the following treatise on 

 agriculture for the Albany Argus, then conducted 

 by the subscriber. To give it to the public in a less 

 perishable shape than the columns of a newspaper, 

 it was afterward published^* book form. The ob- 

 ject of General Armstrong was " to contribute his 

 aid," to use his language, " in giving to the study 

 and practice of agriculture a new and increased 

 impulse throughout the state ; and he supposed 

 this could be best done by exhibiting concisely the 

 origin and progress of the art, its present condition 

 abroad and at home, and, lastly, the theory and 

 practice in relation to it which have arisen out of 

 the present philosophical attainments in Europe." 



At a subsequent period, at our request, the gen- 

 eral wrote two essays, one upon the kitchen, 

 and the other upon the fruit garden, which were 

 published in the second and third volumes of the 

 Memoirs of the Board of Agriculture. As there 

 were but few copies of either the treatise or the 

 memoirs printed, the circulation was, of course, 

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