Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from American Farming and Stock Raising, With Useful Facts for the Household, Vol. 1 of 3: Devoted to Farming in All Its Departments, Including Rotation of Crops, Drainage, Fertilizers, Ensilage, the Dairy, Orchard, Vineyard
The prosperity of a country depends chie?y upon the intelligent cultivation of its soil. No one can doubt that. The intelligent cultivation of the soil depends upon information. This is equally plain. Practical and theoretical knowledge is power in agriculture, as in everything else. It lies at the foundation of individual and national wealth. Those who know the most will, in the long run, do the best work at the best time and in the best way. They will work out the best results, both for themselves and for the community in which they live.
The progress made within the last twenty years in the sciences which are intimately con nected with the cultivation of the soil is something wonderful. It has opened new fields of thought, of investigation, and of experiment. During that time the science of chemistry has made rapid advances, and its methods of investigation have been greatly improved. It has brought its contributions to agriculture from a great variety of sources, each of which brings something peculiar to itself. It has explained the composition of soils and manures. It has added greatly to our stock of knowledge as to the methods of feeding animals to obtain special results, giving us accurate information of the composition of feeding substances, and the effect of different processes of feeding upon the development of the animal economy.
At the same time botany has solved the mysteries of plant-growth, and, with the aid of vegetable physiology, has thrown a flood of light upon the elements of plant-food, and the means by which the production of crops can be greatly promoted. All the sciences, indeed, have contributed to the development of agriculture, some of them directly, others by leading the minds of men to a higher standard of intellectual activity.
The agricultural literature of the country has grown up almost entirely within the last quarter of a century, and has taken a rank worthy of the importance of the industry to the development of which it is devoted. Thirty years ago there were few works on farming in this country that were at all creditable either in style or the information they contained. Most of the books on the subject were English, or reprints of English publications. They were not well adapted to meet the wants of American farmers. They often contained much that was interesting, but generally lacked that full and practical information based on actual experiment that was well calculated to meet the wants of daily life upon the farm. They abounded in theories rather than facts.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
