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TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE, 
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In 1882, at the request of the Swiss, Agricultural. Society, the Federal Assembly voted a 
erant of 10,000 francs (£400) to encourage the culture of forage. It was decided by 
the Department of Commerce and Acriculture, on the advice of a committee of experts, that 
a part of thisssum should be devoted. to the production of a popular manual ; and the result 
of this decision’ was the present work. The author, Dr. C. Stebler, Chief of the Seed 
Control-Station at Ziirich, is renowned, as a seed analyst and a practical agriculturist, in all 
parts of the world; and it is not too much to say of his treatise that it could starcely be 
improved upon, whether from the point of view of the scientific botanist or from that of the 
working farmer, both of whom (and this is a point on which I wish to insist) may consult it 
with special and peculiar profit. Its quality, deed, is such as places it beyond the reach of 
time ; for Dr. Stebler, refraining from generalisation, and working in the true spirit of science, 
_ has differentiated some thirty types of grass and clover, and has dealt with each so.completely 
and exactly that his analysis must remain authoritative while the types themselves exist. It 
is fair to add that the value of his work is immensely enhanced by the admirable plates with 
which it is accompanied, They are the work of Herr L. Schréter, and were produced wider 
the superintendence of the artist’s brother, Dr. Carl Schroter, Professor of Botany’at Ziirieh, 
who is further responsible for the botanical descriptions in the text. The result of this happy ’ 
combination is the masterpiece now for the first time presented in English, and destined, 
or I am greatly mistaken, to operate a revolution in the forage culture of Great Britain. - 
The fodder plants are just now coming in for a great deal of attention, for the British 
Islands are pre-emimently adapted for production, and year by year, as statistics show, the 
amount of land under grass is on the increase. But there has always been a great want of 
useful and suggestive reading on, the subject, and it is proposed to meet that want by the 
publication of this book. Dr. Stebler deals with his material scientifically, it is true, 
yet with no abuse of terminology, but simply, rationally, practically—in such’ a way, indeed, 
as to be readily understood by all. There can be no question that _suecessfully to 
cultivate a plant, the cultivator must of necessity have some knowledge—the more ‘the 
better—of that plant's botanical peculiarities, and none that the technical point herein 
involved has been long an obstacle in the farmer's way. In Dr, Stebler’s work the 
difficulty, if not entirely overcome, has been greatly lessened by the addition of Professor 
Schroter’s illustrations, which are drawn .and coloured from life, and in which the 
botanieal features are representéd so minutely and so accurately as to ‘be instantly 
oh ‘recognisable.’ Each. of .Dr. Stebler’s thirty types is shown in its proper plate, in 
which is peor ‘the mode of growth of (1) the whole plant, life size, and (2) the 
"several parts) magnified when necessary, exactly coloured, and distinguished on an exact 
system of flomenclature. The points which the plates are designed to illustrate are 
summarised in the pages opposite, and these elucidations are supplemented by complete 
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