Preface.

In giving these pages to the public I offer no apology for a restatement of fundamental principles always requiring adjustment to new life and circumstances; but economic literature has usually dealt too exclusively with the phenomena of manufactures and commerce to gain the sympathy of rural people. An experience of more than thirty years in handling such subjects at the Michigan and Kansas Agricultural Colleges, together with the expressed confidence of former pupils whose judgment I trust, has led me into the effort to bring the subject home to farmers and farmers' families in this elementary way.

I have carefully refrained from quotations, or even references to works consulted, for the obvious reason that such formalities would distract the attention of most readers from the direct, common-sense thinking desired, and render the style of the book more complex. I hereby acknowledge my debt to the leading writers of past and present upon most of the topics treated, not excluding any school or party.