PREFACE 



Rightly to understand what work is done by living 

 plants, and how it is effected, not only requires a student 

 to be a botanist in the ordinary sense of the word, but 

 necessitates that he should also have a comprehensive 

 knowledge of physics and of chemistry. 



In few individuals can such an extensive knowledge 

 now-a-days be expected. The practical cultivator espe- 

 cially, harrassed by the daily cares of his occupation, is 

 not able to master the endless details of these sciences ; 

 and yet experience shows the increasing necessity for 

 furnishing him with new tools and new weapons to 

 enable him to utilize the resources of Nature, and to 

 contend against adverse circumstances. Such tools, such 

 weapons are furnished by the armory of science. It is 

 the object of this Handbook to point out the nature of 

 these resources, and suggest the methods of utilizing 

 them. Something will be gained if only a right appre- 

 ciation of what cannot be done is obtained, as thereby 

 labor on a sterile soil will be avoided, to be applied with 

 more reasonable hope of success elsewhere. 



In the following pages an attempt has, therefore, been 

 made to supply a sketch, necessarily in faintest outline, 

 of the physiology or life-history of plants ; of the way in 

 which they are affected by the circumstances under which 

 they exist, and of the manner in which they in their turn 

 react upon other living beings and upon natural forces* 

 Of necessity, there has been a little overlapping in the 

 case of some of the subjects treated of in the companion 

 volume, " The Chemistry of the Farm," by Mr. Waring- 

 ton ; but as the matters are looked at from a different 



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