PREFACE 



This edition of the Great World's Farm has been 

 somewhat abridged from the original English edition 

 in order to bring it within the limits required for 

 books of the Chautauqua Reading Circle. No essen- 

 tial features of the work, however, have been elimi- 

 nated, and the chapter divisions remain the same as 

 in the larger edition, with the exception of the last, 

 ''Man's Work on the Farm," which has been omitted 

 entirely. 



''Readers of mature years can hardly fail to find 

 in this volume some facts that are new to them, some 

 suggestions of a wider interpretation of nature or of 

 a more accurate perception of its interrelations, or 

 some fresh cause for intelligent wonder." 



