290 THE PRINCIPLES OF AGRICULTURE 



regards farming as a business, to which science 

 may be made to contribute a large measure of 

 success. It treats the subject from the side of 

 production, since it is not practicable to confuse 

 this brief treatment with a discussion of social 

 rural questions. 



The general plan of the book is to state fun- 

 damental principles in terse language without 

 very much explanation. In order to cover so 

 much ground, it is necessary to make the text 

 very brief. It is considered that the book should 

 not run beyond three hundred pages, else it 

 would be so large as to interfere with its gen- 

 eral usefulness. The bare statement of princi- 

 ples is likely to be dry and uninteresting, how- 

 ever, and therefore some incidental and explana- 

 tory remarks are placed in small type at the 

 end of each chapter. Principles themselves never 

 need pictures for illustration; but the applica- 

 tions of these principles are often made plain by 

 the use of engravings. Therefore the engravings 

 are placed in the explanatory text rather than 

 in the preliminary statements. 



The whole book is itself a skeleton or outline 

 of the subject. It is expected that the reader 

 will fill it in as he goes along, by discussion and 

 by reading other books, bulletins and agricultural 

 papers. Some useful references will be found in 

 the explanatory matter. 



