THE AMERICAN EDITOR'S 

 INTRODUCTION. 



" To render Agriculture more productive and beneficial to all, it is necessary that its principles should 

 be better understood, and that we should profit more from the experience of each other, and by the 

 example of other countries which excel us in this great business." DUEL. 



THE work upon husbandry now ushered before the American public is the produc- 

 tion of an English gentleman of great intelligence, assisted by some of the best 

 authorities upon rural subjects in his country. By collecting and condensing the 

 most interesting details relative to farming, chiefly derived from living authors, such 

 as Professors Liebig, Lowe, Sir J. E. Smith, Brande, Youatt, Stephens, Thompson, 

 Lindley, I. F. Johnson, etc., etc., he has been enabled to present the very latest infor- 

 mation, and furnish a fund of matter which cannot fail to attract all who take an 

 interest in rural affairs, so long studied and so thoroughly understood as these must 

 needs be in Great Britain. 



The absence of speculative views, with the very practical and matter-of-fact character 

 of the information given upon all subjects treated of, will perhaps be found to consti- 

 tute the highest recommendation of " C. W. Johnson's Farmers' Encyclopaedia, and 

 Dictionary of Rural Affairs." 



The comparatively limited range of English Agriculture is strongly contrasted with 

 the diversity of culture met with in the United States. A work limited to an account 

 of productions of the soil and climate of England would leave out many of the 

 most important crops which exact the attention of the American farmer and planter. 

 Hence the necessity of adapting a book of the kind to the new localities into which 

 it is introduced. This, as may be well supposed, presents a task of no small labour. 



It has been charged upon agriculturists, that improvements in husbandry encounter 

 great opposition, and generally work their way very slowly ; whereas inventions and 

 improvements made in the manufacturing and mechanic arts are seized upon and put 

 to profit almost as quickly as promulgated. The late and justly celebrated Mr. Coke, 

 of Holkam, England, the great benefactor of his own country, and, indeed, of every 

 other country where agriculture is cherished, succeeded, by the adoption of an en- 

 lightened course of tillage, in converting a sandy and comparatively sterile district 

 into one of very great productiveness. But, though his improvements were on so 

 large a scale, and the results so very striking to observers, such was the general 

 ignorance, apathy, or prejudice prevailing in the neighbouring counties, that he esti- 

 mated the rate at which his improved process spread around him, at only about three 

 miles a year. A better condition of things would seem to exist at present in the 

 United States, doubtless owing to the extension of education. But a few months 

 have passed since the treatise upon Agricultural Chemistry of the celebrated Dr. 

 Liebig, reached this side of the Atlantic, and though much of it is couched in the ab- 

 struse phraseology of science, still has it been eagerly sought after in all directions, 

 and gone through several editions. Can any stronger proof be furnished of the high 

 state of intelligence pervading a large portion of the agricultural population of the 

 United States ? 



The advances in agricultural improvement have, of late years, been in what mathe- 

 maticians call a geometrical ratio, the pace increasing with great celerity at every suc- 

 cessive step. In proportion as the influences of modern education become diffused, the 

 savage characteristics of man are softened down, and the better feelings of his nature ac- 

 I A 1 



