rict of New York.

TO

MY FRIEND AND TUTOR,

PROF. JAMES J. MAPES,

THE PIONEER OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE IN AMERICA,

This Book

IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED

BY HIS PUPIL,

THE AUTHOR.

TO THE STUDENT.

This book is presented to you, not as a work of science, nor as a dry,
chemical treatise, but as a plain statement of the more simple
operations by which nature produces many results, so common to our
observation, that we are thoughtless of their origin. On these results
depend the existence of man and the lower animals. No man should be
ignorant of their production.

In the early prosecution of the study, you will find, perhaps, nothing
to relieve its tediousness; but, when the foundation of agricultural
knowledge is laid in your mind so thoroughly that you know the character
and use of every stone, then may your thoughts build on it fabrics of
such varied construction, and so varied in their uses, that there will
be opened to you a new world, even more wonderful and more beautiful
than the outward world, which exhibits itself to the senses. Thus may
you live two lives, each assisting in the enjoyment of the other.

But you may ask the _practical_ use of this. "The world is made up of
little things," saith the proverb. So with the productive arts. The
steam engine consists of many parts, each part being itself composed of
atoms too minute to be detected by our observation. The earth itself, in
all its solidity and life, consists entirely of atoms too small to be
perceived by the naked eye, each visible particle being an aggregation
of thousands of constituent elements. The crop of wheat, which the
farmer raises by his labor, and sells for money, is produced by a
combination of particles equally small. They are not mysteriously
combined, nor irregularly, but each atom is taken from its place of
deposit, and carried to its required location in the living plant, by
laws as certain as those which regulate the motion of the engine, or the
revolutions of the earth.

It is the business of the practical farmer to put together these
materials, with the assistance of nature. He may learn her ways, assist
her action, and succeed; or he may remain ignorant of her operations,
often counteract her beneficial influences, and often fail.

A knowledge of the _inner_ world of material things about us will
produce pleasure to the thoughtful, and profit to the practical.

CONTENTS.

SECTION F