PREFACE 



Within the area of North America north of Mexico, the range of agricultural cropping comprises one 

 hundred to two hundred kinds of plants, not counting the many horticultural and very special things grown 

 for ornament and personal satisfaction. An account of these plants, together with the methods of growing 

 them, is contained in this Cyclopedia, to which more than one hundred experts have contributed. 



It is not sufficient, in these days, merely to know the kinds of plants and how to grow them. The 

 reader should have a background of other plant knowledge, as a part of his agricultural education. This 

 Cyclopedia aims to provide this introduction and preparation in such articles as those relating to the struc- 

 ture and physiology of plants and to their response to artificial stimulus, and in those touching the modifica- 

 tion of plants under the hands of the plant-breeder. The diseases of plants and the insects that attack 

 them come also within the range of this knowledge of preparation; and the kind of efforts now undertaken 

 to enrich our agriculture and horticulture by the introduction of promising plants from other parts of the 

 world should also be understood. These all contribute to the education of the mental attitude. 



The reader having come intellectually prepared to the subject of crop-growing, he will want to know 

 the principles underlying cropping and rotation systems, the management of weeds, the growing of plants 

 under covers of various kinds, and the accumulated experience of seeding, planting, and transplanting. 

 To this part of the subject are added tables and lists of jdelds and legal weights in the United States and 

 Canada. 



The foregoing subjects comprise about one-fourth the text of the volume, covered in Part I with seven 

 chapters. Part II covers the manufacture of crop products in the way of canning, preserving, evaporating 

 and pickhng, and the making of juices. The larger commercial operations in these fields are, of course, not 

 described, for they belong in industrial manufacture rather than in agriculture. 



These general subjects having been dismissed, the reader comes to the alphabetic list of crops. For the 

 most part, the horticultural crops and plants are omitted as they are very numerous, and they are specially 

 discussed in the Editor's Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture. To add them would increase the size and 

 expense of this work beyond aU bounds, for the subject requires, even for brief treatment, six large volumes 

 in the other Cyclopedia. However, fruit-growing and truck-growing are treated, as these run to large- 

 acreage operations and partake of the nature of general agriculture. Particular attention is given to the 

 farm forest subject. Although it is sometimes said that forestry begins where farming ends, the two are 

 only complements one of the other, comprising different ways of cropping the land. To grow a woodlot is 

 only one form of agriculture, and it is a form that must greatly increase in importance as we enter the domain 

 of pubhc economy that demands the best utilization of neglected lands. It is a sharp reflection on our State 

 pohcies that so many of these lands in natural forest regions still remain repulsive and waste. 



As an educated point of view is essential to the joyful approach to the subject of cropping, so is a similar 

 mental preparation useful in the discussion of the particular crop. Therefore, something of the nativity, 

 naming, distribution and other factors introduces the crops, in a form as condensed as is consistent with 

 accurate statement. A closer study of the plants themselves is essential to a masterful hold on the cropping 

 subjects. The trained observation is directly useful, also, in the imderstanding of the diseases and insects 

 that follow the crops of man as they also foUow the crops of nature. 



The reader may find in this volume much information on crops that are scarcely agricultural in a large 

 sense and which are not included in the Cyclopedia of Horticulture. Thus the article on Medicinal Plants 

 provides a ready cyclopedic reference in an interesting field, as also those on Fiber Plants, Incidental Forage- 

 like Plants, Oil-bearing Plants, Paper-making Plants, Dyes and Dyeing. It is often diflBcult to find such 

 information in available form. 



The book is not unrelated to the home, as the article on the Home Gardens testifies, as well as that on 

 Ornamental Plants. It is the aim of educators to converge all the agricultural riches into the betterment 

 of rural homes. 



This much the Editor has felt impelled to say as a reason for the re-pubhcation of this volume. The 

 Cyclopedia of American Agriculture is for the present out of print, as such. The great expense of book 

 manufacturing at present precludes the immediate reprinting of it as a whole, and the demand has disposed 

 of aU the stock of former printings. The volumes on Crops and Animals are separately called for to such 

 an extent that they are repubhshed, however, to continue as much as possible of the old work, each as a 

 Cyclopedia in itself. The work of the many persons who wrote the articles is timely and useful and deserves 

 perpetuation. • 



L. H. BAILEY. 

 November 14, 1921. 



