Excerpt from Seedtime and Harvest: Cereals, Flax, Cotton, and Tobacco; Dates of Planting and Harvesting East of Meridians 102-104, in the United States Unaffected by the rapid expansion of areas under cultivation and the rapidity with which crops Of surplus producing countries are exchanged, the dependence of man and beast upon seedtime and harvest continues unceasingly. As popularly applied, these terms are descriptive of local phases of agriculture, and yet it is common knowledge that sowing and reaping are going on in different parts of the earth all months of the year. From a world viewpoint, these Operations are continuous and unending. Mankind is somewhere busy all seasons at one or the other. Coincident with the westward trend -of population in the United States marvelous changes have taken place in agriculture. Wide spread and profound, they have occurred almost unawares and the magnitude of their influence is realized only in retrospect. The increase in facilities for transportation, the readiness with which crops of surplus producing countries are exchanged, the develop ment of the sciences of agriculture and their coordination with other sciences, and the invention of labor-saving agricultural machinery are perhaps the most profound of these changes. Nations remote from one another now freely exchange their agricultural products, scientists strive to make practical in agriculture the results of lab oratory tests, and invention is steadily increasing the effectiveness of human labor and reducing the cost of production. The value to agriculture of the science of meteorology, of a knowl edge of how properly to prepare the seed bed, how to select pure bred, viable seed, and of the advantage gained by the adoption of suitable cultural methods are freely admitted and popular interest in these Subjects is increasing by leaps and bounds, but informa tion concerning the progress of planting and harvesting, those great waves of agricultural activity which annually sweep over the land, is limited and far from comprehensive. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

"This circular contains maps showing the dates when planting, harvesting and other operations are preformed in the culture of staple crops in different parts of the United States, and also graphs showing the seasonal distribution of labor by 10-day periods on typical farms in several important agricultural regions. The inscriptions under the maps and graphs afford information as to the hours of labor per acre required in growing the staple crops in certain sections of the country."--Page [2].