Vni INTRODUCTION. 



T'hough agriculture, strictly considered, has nothing to do 

 with the breeding and managennent of tame animals, yet it i§ 

 so closely connected with those employments, in practice, ihat 

 the farmer cannot be complete without a considerable know- 

 ledge thereof. It is by the assistance of labouring beasts, such 

 as horses and oxen, that he must carry on his tillage, and send 

 the produce of his lands to market. By the help of milch 

 kine his grass, hay, and other fodder, are to be converted into 

 butter and cheese. Bullocks, poultry and swine must be fed 

 and fattened with the produce of his farm, that he and his 

 family may be fed with their flesh, and the markets supplied 

 with meat. And the sheep must assist him in the transmuta- 

 tion of the fruits of his ground into materials for clothing and 

 food. Therefore the rearing, tending, and whole management, 

 of all these sorts of animals, are attended to in the following 

 work; including the methods of preventing and curing the most 

 common distenij-ers to which, in this climate, they are liable. 



iS^oxious anin)als. such as beasts of pre), ravenous birds, and 

 devourmg insects, have too much connexion with agriculture, 

 as the farmer knows b) his sorrowful experience. He ought 

 therefore to be instructed in the most effectual methods of de- 

 fending his property against them. This arduous task, to which 

 no one perhaps can pretend to be fully equal, the reader will 

 find attempted, and it is hoped, in some good degree peiformedj 

 in the following pages. 



As fruit trees are of essential importance to the farmer, 

 the rearing of them from seeds an^l otherwise, as also the 

 grafting, transplanting and pruning them, are attended to in this 

 work. 



And as agriculture cannot be carried on to the best advan- 

 tage, without a variety of suitable tools and machines ; the 

 most important and useful of farming implements are treated of. 

 Much of^ the ease and comfort of tiie labourer, as well as the 

 profit oi the farmer, depends upon their being well constructed. 

 Their construction, therefore, is minutely attended to, al- 

 though the art of the mechanic is the branch to which it most 

 properly belongs. 



'J'he author attempted to arrange the parts of his subject 

 analytically. But the variety of the materials he had collected 

 was so great, and their heterogeneousness so obvious, that he 

 found it not easy to do it to his own satisfaction ; which is one 

 of the reasons why the book makes its appearance in the lexi- 

 cographical form. And when he considers that what he is 

 doing is not principally for the instruction of critical scholars, 

 but for the direction of the common people, it appears that the 



