The Farmer's Assistant - 1820 Author:John Nicholson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: INTRODUCTION. THE following Work is offered for the patronage of the Farmers and Planters of our Country. It is believed to contain a summary of the best mean... more »s, known among us, for each to conduct his business to advantage. The various articles comprising the Work are arranged in alphabetical order, with references to each other, where they have a necessary connection. The Work is mostly abridged from the essays of others; interspersed, however, with. some original remarks. Considerable acknowledgments are due to the Gentlemen whose essays have been published by ' the Society for the promotion of Useful Arts,' in the State of Newyork, of which the Author is a Member; and also, to the essays of those composing 'the Philadelphia Society for promoting Agriculture.' The first Edition of the Work was intended principally for the northern part of our territory; but, as farming has general features of similarity in all Countries, it was thought expedient to enlarge the Work, so as to include all that relates to Agriculture; to offer it as the Assistant, as well of the Planter of the South, as of the Farmer of the North. In speaking of these, however, no other distinction is intended, than what is sanctioned by custom; every Planter is a Farmer, and every Farmer a Planter, as the terms are commonly understood in this Country. Although, in some parts of Europe, practical Farming may be considered as nearly reduced to a science; yet, in this Country, from inattention to this important subject, owing, perhaps, to the ease with which a subsistence is acquired, where lands are plenty, the means of making the most of the labors of the field is, in general, but imperfectly understood. On this subject, the existing knowledge in other Countries, even if brought home, would not, in all res...« less