Cyclopedia of farm crops

Front matter

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ROPS

Preface

Within the area of North America north of Mexico, the range of agricultural cropping comprises one hundred to two hundred kinds of plants, not counting the many horticultural and very special things grown fur ornament and personal satisfaction. An account of these plants, together with the methods of growing them, is contained in this Cyclopedia, to which more than one hundred experts have contributed.

It is not sufficient, in these days, merely to know the kinds of plants and how to grow them. The reader should have a background of other plant knowledge, as a part of his agricultural education. This Cyclopedia aims to provide this introduction and preparation in such articles as those relating to the structure and physiology of plants and to their response to artificial stimulus, and in those touching the modification of plants under the hands of the plant-breeder. The diseases of plants and the insects that attack them come also within the range of this knowledge of preparation; and the kind of efforts now undertaken to enrich our agriculture and horticulture by the introduction of promising plants from other parts of the world should also be understood. These aU contribute to the education of the mental attitude.

The reader having come intellectually prepared to the subject of crop-growing, he will want to know the principles underlying cropping and rotation systems, the management of weeds, the growing of plants under covers of various kinds, and the accumulated experience of seeding, planting, and transplanting. To this part of the subject are added tables and lists of yields and legal weights' in the United States and Canada.

The foregoing subjects comprise about one-fourth the text of the volume, covered in Part I with seven chapters. Part II covers the manufacture of crop products in the way of canning, preserving, evaporating and pickhng, and the making of juices. The larger commercial operations in these fields are, of course, not described, for they belong in industrial manufacture rather than in agriculture.

These general subjects having been dismissed, the reader comes to the alphabetic hst of crops. For the most part, the horticultural crops and plants are omitted as they are very numerous, and they are specially discussed in the Editor's Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture. To add them would increase the size and expense of this work beyond aU bounds, for the subject requires, even for brief treatment, six large volumes in the other Cyclopedia. However, fruit-growing and truck-growing are treated, as these run to largeacreage operations and partake of the nature of general agriculture. Particular attention is given to the farm forest subject. Although it is sometimes said that forestry begins where farming ends, the two are only complements one of the other, comprising different ways of cropping the land. To grow a woodlot is only one form of agriculture, and it is a form that must greatly increase in importance as we enter the domain of public economy that demands the best utilization of neglected lands. It is a sharp reflection on our State pohcies thafso many of these lands in natural forest regions still remain repulsive and waste.

As an educated point of view is essential to the joyful approach to the subject of cropping, so is a similar mental preparation useful in the discussion of the particular crop. Therefore, something of the nativity, naming, distribution and other factors introduces the crops, in a form as condensed as is consistent with accurate statement. A closer study of the plants themselves is essential to a masterful hold on the cropping subjects. The trained observation is directly useful, also, in the understanding of the diseases and insects that follow the crops of man as they also follow the crops of nature.

The reader may find in this volume much information on crops that are scarcely agricultural in a large sense and which are not included in the Cyclopedia of Horticulture. Thus the article on Medicinal Plants provides a ready cyclopedic reference in an interesting field, as also those on Fiber Plants, Incidental Forage- Eke Plants, Oil-bearing Plants, Paper-making Plants, Dyes and Dyeing. It is often difficult to find such information in available form.

The book is not unrelated to the home, as the article on the Home Gardens testifies, as well as that on Ornamental Plants. It is the aim of educators to converge all the agricultural riches into the betterment of rural homes.

This much the Editor has felt impelled to say as a reason for the re-pubUcation of this volume. The Cyclopedia of American Agriculture is for the present out of print, as such. The great expense of book manufacturing at present precludes the immediate reprinting of it as a whole, and the demand has disposed of all the stock of former printings. The volumes on Crops and Animals are separately called for to such an extent that they are repubhshed, however, to continue as much as possible of the old work, each as a Cyclopedia in itself. The work of the many persons who wrote the articles^s timely and useful and deserves perpetuation.

L. H. BAILEY.

November 14, 1921.

Chapter I Page

The Plant : Its Structure, Life-Processes and Environment. W. J. V. Osterhout 11

Response of Plants to Artificial Lights. G. E. Stone 22

The Stimulation of Plant Growth by Means of Weak Poisons. Howard S. Reed 28

Effect of Electricity on Plants. G. E. Stone 30

CHAPTER n

Means of Controlling Insects. M. V. Slingerland 40

Means of Controlling Plant Diseases. Henry L. Bolley 46

CHAPITER HI

Some of the Principles of Plant-Breeding. Herbert J. Webber 57

CHAPTER IV

Plant Introduction. David Fairchild 70-80

CHAPTER V

Crop Management 81-118

Farm Management. A. M. TenEyck 90

The Triennial Crop Rotation System. Hugh N. Starnes 98

Examples of Crop Rotation Systems in Canada, United States, and Elsewhere. S. Eraser ... 99

Chemical Weed-Killers, or Herbicides. L. R. Jones 115

CHAPTER VI

Growing Plants Under Cover 119-130

The Shading of Plants. B. M. Duggar 119

Glasshouses for Vegetable Crops. L. R. Taft 123

Plants in Residence Windows. Charles E. Hunn 128

CHAPTER VII

Practical Advice on Seed-Testing. E. Brown and F. H. Hillman • 141

Growing Seed Crops. W.W.Tracy ' 144

The Growing and Transplanting of Field-Crop Plants. L. C. Corbett 147

Yields of Farm Crops 15L vi CONTENTS

Part Ii— The Manufacture Of Crop Products Chapter VIII

Preserved Products 157-177

Canning Industry in California. C. H. Bentley 158

Home Preserving and Canning. Anna Barrows 161

The Commercial Canning Industry. Samuel C. Prescott 168

Home-made Pickles and Ketchup. Anna Barrows 173

Evaporating as a Home Industry in Eastern United States. G. F. Warren 174

CHAPTER IX

Juices and Liquors 177-190

Grape and Other Fruit Juices. A. M. Loomis • 178

Wine, Cider and Vinegar. Samuel C. Prescott 181

Industrial Alcohol— Denatured Alcohol. H.W.Wiley 186

Brewing. Samuel C. Prescott 188