In 1999, the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association inaugurated the Bookshelf series in commemoration of the bicentennial of George Washington's death. Each volume in the ongoing collection will provide a concise overview of a specific Washingtonian topic, offering a wealth of valuable information on such areas as the soldier-statesman's domestic life, political and social interests, and service to the new nation.

This volume provides a fresh historical focus on George Washington as a pioneer farmer actively engaged in a new approach to agriculture: one based on a more scientific attitude toward crops, farm animals, and the land. As Alan and Donna Jean Fusonie examined his correspondence and diaries, the emerging profile of Washington was of a tireless experimenter eager to share his results with visitors and with farmers in other parts of the country and abroad. In his correspondence Washington used the power of his pen to convey important agricultural thoughts. He increasingly expressed his concern about the ruinous agricultural practices of many of his fellow farmers. Washington's complex shift to a more self-reliant and integrated system of agriculture proved him to be an informed, forward-thinking decision maker who focused on the long-term productivity and conservation of his land at Mount Vernon. The authors, also practicing farmers, are intrigued by the similarity between Washington's outlook and that of an increasing number of today's farmers who use more sustainable approaches.

In the landscape of the American imagination the Kansas farmer looms large, an icon of midwestern diligence and bounty. But just as the state's seemingly flat horizon denotes earthly riches, the Kansas farmer contains multitudes. The photographs by Larry Schwarm capture this world in all its depth and diversity, conveying in breadth and detail the grit and mystery, the art and science, of farming in Kansas. The outgrowth of a collaborative study of crop production, farming practices, and land use in Kansas, this volume looks into the larger questions the study raised: why farmers choose to farm and what that life entails. Larry Schwarm, distinguished professor of photography in the School of Art, Design, and Creative Industries at Wichita State University, hails from a farming family with a century-long relationship to the land, and his photographs reflect a keen sense of both the beauty and hardship of the farmer's life. Taken in the midst of a record-long drought, they picture the age-old industry caught up in the drama of the changing climate-Kansas farmers and ranchers tending crops and animals while working the earth in an ever-shifting balance with nature. As documentary and fine art, these exquisite photographs and accompanying commentary speak to the ageless nature of farming and the pressing questions confronting the present-day farmer in Kansas.