PREFACE 



This little treatise is an attempt to supply a great 

 and growing want in our country; a want of some 

 elementary work, that shall clearly and distinctly ex- 

 plain the great principles that are involved in the 

 applications of science to agriculture. The necessity 

 for such a work has become apparent to all who have 

 engaged in the dissemination of knowledge upon this 

 subject; to all who have endeavored to arouse the 

 farming community, by bringing forward incitements 

 to the study of this new science. 



The agricultural interest is now awaking to a full 

 sense of its deficiences, and demands imperatively, 

 that knowledge, in clear and comprehensive forms, 

 be placed within its reach. 



We have large works of great merit, in Johnston's 

 Lectures, and Stephens's Farmers' Guide; but these 

 are too bulky for the man who has just begun to en- 

 tertain the idea that there may, after all, be something 

 learned from books. A small work of this kind is far 

 more likely to attract his attention, and gradually to 



