the more important undertakings, explorations and researches 

 which aim, by promoting agriculture, to increase the measure 

 and to widen the area of human prosperity. 



Information will thus be given, in the present Bulletins, 

 from time to time, on each of the many regions into which we 

 have divided the habitable globe. For the more important 

 countries from which regular and manifold information is 

 obtainable, constant and varied news will be supplied. On 

 the other hand, efforts will be made to collect information on 

 the less accessible and known countries. Knowledge regarding 

 the opening up of new regions may be of great advantage to 

 the future progress of agriculture, and of much actual value 

 to industrial and commercial undertakings, with reciprocal 

 advantage to the civilisation of old and of new countries. 



It may sometimes happen that more space will be devoted 

 to a small and remote island than to a country far in advance 

 both in population and activity. In all agricultural matters 

 the final test of importance is their utility and the suggest- 

 ions they may contain for new developments in suitable places. 

 Their value is often more dependent on locality than on the 

 intrinsic nature of the question itself. 



The object kept in view in selecting information will be 

 to give a general account of the present agricultural aspect 

 in each country, delineating the intellectual movement which 

 urges on to increase and improvement of production. A 

 picture of the active life of the farm, where science is already 

 being transformed into action, is preferable, for the purposes 

 of the present publication, to an account of the details of 

 laboratory work. 



This series of bulletins, dealing with separate countries, 

 all reduced to the common denominator of a single language, 

 will supply each State with material for comparisons, in them- 

 selves a most valuable form of international cooperation. 



" Nations figure by comparison " (wrote Arthur Young, 

 chief of pioneers in the study of Comparative Agriculture) ; 

 11 and those ought to be esteemed the benefactors of the 

 human race, who have most established public prosperity on 

 the basis of private happiness. " 



