PREFACE 
Nature is the great farmer. Continually she sows and reaps, 
making all the forces of the universe her tools and helpers. The 
sun’s rays, wind, rain, frost and snow, insects and birds, animals 
small and great, even to the humble burrowing worms of the earth, 
all work mightily for her and a harvest of some kind is absolutely 
sure. And to the people who must wrest a living from the soil, not 
only for themselves. but for all mankind besides, it must seem that 
Nature’s favorites are the hardy, aggressive, and often useless and 
harmful plants which they have named weeds. 
Yet, when man interferes with the Great Mother’s plans and 
insists that the crops shall be only such as may benefit and enrich 
himself, she seems to yield a willing obedience, and under his guid- 
ance does immensely better work than when uncontrolled. But 
Dame Nature is an “eve-servant”’; only by the sternest determina- 
tion and the most unrelaxing vigilance can her fellow-worker subdue 
the earth to his will and fulfill the destiny foreshadowed in that 
primal blessing, so sadly disguised and misnamed, when the first 
man was told, “Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt 
thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall 
it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat of the herb of the field.” 
A stern decree. But the civilization of the peoples of the earth is 
measured by the forward state of their agriculture; and agriculture 
in its simplest terms is the compelling of the soil to yield only such 
products as shall conduce to the welfare of the people who live upon 
it. It resolves itself into a contest with nature as to what plants 
shall be permitted to grow, and the discovery of the easiest, surest, 
and most economical means of securing a victory in the strife. 
In agriculture, as in every field of labor, modern invention and 
discovery have greatly multiplied the power and efficiency of each 
pair of human hands; but still in this contest with nature and 
the growing plants, it frequently happens that those hands are 
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