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Many of the early books on farming were written in a technical style. They
smacked of the lecture room and the library rather than of the soil. They were
scholarly rather than practical. A spirit of directness and simplicity is
beginning to dominate agricultural literature. The modern type of farm books
is born of actual contact with the soil and a desire to be of service to the
men who are getting a living from the soil. They are democratic; they discuss
common things in a plain way. The long and tedious tables of figures in the
old books are giving place to crisp summaries. The technical lecture-room
phrases are replaced by words in common use on farms. The idea is not to
present less science - for nothing is so practical as sound science — but to
present science in a simple and practical way. This new spirit is
contemporaneous with the farmers' institute, the farmer's reading-course,
Nature-study, elementary agriculture in the public schools and other efforts
to serve the man who tills the soil. It is an expression of a general movement
which aims to democracise agricultural teaching. This book is an attempt to
set forth the important facts about the soil in a plain and untechnical
manner. It is not a contribution to agricultural science, but an
interpretation of it — a new presentation of what is already known.
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