PREFACE "Let posterity know, and knowing be astonished, that on the fifteenth day of September, 1784, Vincent Lunardi of Lucca, in Tuscany, the first aerial traveller in Britain, mounting from the Artillery Ground in London, and traversing the regions of the air for two hours and fifteen minutes, on this spot revisited the earth. In this rude monument for ages be recorded this wondrous enterprise... more...

Agriculture in Virginia, 1607-1699 Various events in the latter years of the sixteenth century did much to shape the future destiny of the English nation. With the destruction of the Spanish Armada in 1588, England rose from a minor position in world affairs to one of major importance. One of the first changes was reflected in her attitude towards trade and commerce. England was no longer penned up on... more...

CHAPTER I. THE INTRODUCTION OF AIRCRAFT INTO MILITARY OPERATIONS It is a curious circumstance that an invention, which is hailed as being one of the greatest achievements ever recorded in the march of civilisation, should be devoted essentially to the maiming of humanity and the destruction of property. In no other trend of human endeavour is this factor so potently demonstrated as in connection with... more...

CHAPTER I. THE DAWN OF AERONAUTICS. "He that would learn to fly must be brought up to the constant practice of it from his youth, trying first only to use his wings as a tame goose will do, so by degrees learning to rise higher till he attain unto skill and confidence." So wrote Wilkins, Bishop of Chester, who was reckoned a man of genius and learning in the days of the Commonwealth. But so... more...

One pleasant morning, very early in the spring, Rollo's cousin Lucy came to call for Rollo to go on an expedition, which they had planned the day before. It was near the end of March, and the snow had become so consolidated by the warm sun in the days, and the hard frosts at night, that it would bear the children to walk upon it. The children called it the crust; but it was not, strictly speaking,... more...

GEORGIC I What makes the cornfield smile; beneath what starMaecenas, it is meet to turn the sodOr marry elm with vine; how tend the steer;What pains for cattle-keeping, or what proofOf patient trial serves for thrifty bees;-Such are my themes.O universal lightsMost glorious! ye that lead the gliding yearAlong the sky, Liber and Ceres mild,If by your bounty holpen earth once changedChaonian acorn for... more...

CHAPTER I. THE INCEPTION OF THE GRANGE When President Johnson authorized the Commissioner of Agriculture, in 1866, to send a clerk in his bureau on a trip through the Southern States to procure "statistical and other information from those States," he could scarcely have foreseen that this trip would lead to a movement among the farmers, which, in varying forms, would affect the political and... more...

Mr. President, and Members of the "Central Mich. Ag'l Society:" Ladies and Gentlemen: Remote from the theatre of action in the late rebellion, Michigan has experienced comparatively few of the evils that followed immediately in its path. The usual pursuits of peaceful life, were here scarcely disturbed, and by the permission of a Gracious Providence, the industry of the inhabitants of our... more...

HISTORY OF FARMINGThe Land and the People From the most southern point of Ontario on Lake Erie, near the 42nd parallel of latitude, to Moose Factory on James Bay, the distance is about 750 miles. From the eastern boundary on the Ottawa and St Lawrence Rivers to Kenora at the Manitoba boundary, the distance is about 1000 miles. The area lying within these extremes is about 220,000 square miles. In 1912... more...

CHAPTER I. THE CALL OF SPRING "Well, after all, the country isn't such a bad place as some city folk think." The young fellow who said this stood upon the highest point of the Ridge Road, where the land sloped abruptly to the valley in which lay the small municipality of Crawberry on the one hand, while on the other open fields and patches of woodland, in a huge green-and-brown... more...