This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1981.

Major crops are treated in detail, covering breeding, ecophysiology, cultivation practices, and pests and diseases. Properties such as economics, production trends, nutritional aspects, chemical and technological features are provided for each group of plants. The book includes an extensive bibliography.