Vlll PREFACE 



Agriculture, then, stands upon business, but 

 science is the staff. Business cannot be taught in 

 a book like this ; but some of the laws of science 

 as applied to farm -management can be taught, and 

 it is convenient to speak of these laws as the 

 principles of agriculture. These principles are ar- 

 ranged in a more or less logical order, so that the 

 teacher may have the skeleton of the subject before 

 him. The subject should not be taught until it is 

 analyzed, for analysis supplies the thread upon which 

 the facts and practices may be strung. The best 

 part of the book, therefore, is the table of contents. 



A book like this should be used only by persons 

 who know how to observe. The starting-point in 

 the teaching of agriculture is nature -study, the 

 training of the power actually to see things and 

 then to draw proper conclusions from them. Into 

 this primary field the author hopes to enter ; but 

 the present need seems to be for a book of prin- 

 ciples designed to aid those who know how to use 

 their eyes. 



L. H. BAILEY, 



HORTICUTURAL DEPARTMENT, 



CORNELL! UNIVERSITY, Dec. 1, 1898. 



