Henry William Ellsworth was a grandson of Oliver Ellsworth, chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, who had purchased 41,000 acres in the Connecticut Western Reserve, including the later site of Cleveland. His father was a mayor of Hartford, Connecticut and then the first Commissioner of the U.S. Patent Office. Henry was a Yale graduate and then a lawyer in Lafayette, IN. He was later appointed Minister to Sweden and Norway.

This book was written during Ellsworth’s Lafayette years, and encourages investment in large-scale farms in the Wabash River Valley. It is filled with information gained from Ellsworth’s own experience and from information gleaned from other farmers about the costs, methods and potential profits of raising a variety of crops and livestock. He also promotes several types of state-of-the-art agricultural equipment.