We recollect in our younger days, when we used to drive home from Penrith market, our friend would say, “come, let us give the horse a song—­he will go home so briskly with us.”  And it really was so, or seemed so at least, be the principle what it may.

Pigs and poultry succeed to cattle and horses, and the author is equally at home in regard to the management of these as of the more valued varieties of stock—­as learned in their various breeds, and as skilful in the methods of fattening, killing, and cutting up.  How much truth is contained in the following remarks, and how easily and usefully might the evil be amended:—­

“Of all the animals reared on a farm, there are none so much neglected by the farmer, both in regard to the selection of their kind, and their qualifications to fatten, as all the sorts of domesticated fowls found in the farm-yard.  Indeed, the very supposition that he would devote any of his time to the consideration of poultry, is regarded as a positive affront on his manhood.  Women, in his estimation, may be fit enough for such a charge, and doubtless they would do it well, provided they were not begrudged every particle of food bestowed upon those useful creatures.  The consequence is what might be expected in the circumstances, that go to most farm-steads, and the surprise will be to meet a single fowl of any description in good condition, that is to say, in such condition that it may be killed at the instant in a fit state for the table, which it might be if it had been treated as a fattening animal from its birth.”—­Vol. ii. p. 246.

The methods of fattening them are afterwards described; and for a mode of securing a new-laid egg to breakfast every winter morning, a luxury which our author “enjoyed for as many years as he lived in the country,” we refer the reader to page 256 of the second volume.

Besides the feeding of stock, one other in-door labour demands the attention of the farmer, when the severity of winter weather has put a stop to the ploughing and the draining of his land.  His grain crops are to be thrashed out, and sent to the market or the mill.  In this part of his work Mr. Stephens has again availed himself of the valuable assistance of Mr. Slight, who, in upwards of 100 pages of closely printed matter, has figured and described nearly all the more useful instruments employed in the preparation of the food of cattle, and in separating the grain of the corn crops.  The thrashing machine, so valuable an addition to the working establishment of a modern farm-steading, is minutely explained—­the varieties in its construction illustrated by wood-cuts—­and the respective merits of the different forms of the machine examined and discussed.  With the following, among his other conclusions, we cordially concur.