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.