An attempt has been made to supply English agriculturists and students of agriculture with a book of which only those who have read the original can appreciate the urgent need. It is significant of the paltry and inefficient way in which England has approached the problem of applying science, system, experiment and education to agriculturists, that such an epoch-making book as this should have been allowed to remain inaccessible to the farming community for 20 years ... The book is simply the record of 42 years work by the experimental stations of the German government on the feeding of farm animals and the feeding-values of farm foods. In England such institutions are solely represented by the private enterprises of Sir Joh Lawes and the Royal Agricultural Society. Wolff makes it possible for every practical man to understand the meaning of real food, of digestibility, of digestible constituents. The economic standards that Wolff lays down have been deduced from exhaustive and accurate experiments ... Perhaps the most valuable feature of the book is that of the tables given in the Appendix. These are universally recognized and form the basis of most of the data as to foods and feeding given in the agricultural press and general agricultural literature - translator's preface.