Practical farmer's guide

Preface

The Author's design, in the preparation of the following pages for the press, has been to furnish in a convenient form a plain and practical Manual for the cultivation of all the leading staples of the South, with a variety of information upon other and kindred subjects, deduced from his own lengthy experience aiid an attentive observation of the pi'actice of successful planters in nearly all of the Southern States.

The loss of so large a number of practical farmers by the casualties of the late war, and the increasing immigration of numbers from other sections who are entirely unacquainted with our system and niodes of culture, seems to him to have created a special necessity for such a w(jrk, at this time.

There are other publications of a somewhat similar character of eminent merit, but none, he thinks, sufKciently comprehensive to meet the demands of the times. Influenced by these considerations, and at the solicitations of friends, he has prepared this work, and now presents it to the public, in the hope that it may be of some benefit, at least, to the young and inexperienced — perhaps to some of maturer years ; that it may contribute, in some slight degree, to rebuild "the waste places" of his native South, and, by adding to her material prosperity, render some humble assistance in enabling her to recover her normal position in the land — believing also, as he does, that "the Angel of Peace is the Sister of Agriculture, and the Flag of Empire will follow the track of the plow."