What I Know of Farming:

Horace Greeley connects the care of the soil with the habit of thinking carefully about everyday work. His practical essays cover choosing a farm, drainage, irrigation, plowing, tree planting, fertilizers and keeping accounts. In the preface, he acknowledges his limited technical knowledge while arguing that farmers can improve their methods through observation and study. He gives particular attention to changes that people of moderate means can introduce gradually.

Reports of drought in the Connecticut and Hudson valleys put these arguments beside examples of thriving and disappointing crops. Greeley presses the case for deeper cultivation and describes materials that can be gathered locally to enrich the soil, including swamp muck, green weeds and fallen leaves. Readers studying agricultural history will find a plainspoken account of farming's costs, resources and possibilities for improvement. His concern with education also gives the work a broader purpose: helping cultivators see their labor as an occupation that calls for knowledge and judgment.