viii EDITOR S PREFACE 



the form and features in detail of the leaves of wheat and 

 barley and oats and rye ? And yet all good farming rests 

 on good observation, and on sound reasoning from the facts 

 and phenomena that one observes. 



I have been struck with the suggestions for original and 

 painstaking observation tliat the pages of this book contain. 

 It presents a type of teaching method that was well put 

 in book form by Hunt in his "Cereals in America,'' — the 

 method that seuds the learner directly to the plant in the 

 field, to make careful observation from tip of root to tip of 

 top. Most farmers do not even yet really know the plants 

 that they till. This volume by Duggar will discover his 

 cotton and his cane to many a man who long has grown 

 them, but who has known thein not. These makers of 

 observation text-books, that present the crops and the 

 animals in their real and living details, will set going a 

 great quiet movement to examine minutely the conditions 

 of agricultural failure and success. 



L. II. BAILEY. 



