to the more general diffusion of sound agricultural literature among our farmers, that we look for that more rapid development of the resources of our varied soils which the times so imperatively demand.  To gain this end no legitimate means ought to be passed by, and we have detained our readers so long upon the book before us, in the hope that they may be induced to lend us their aid also in attaining so desirable an object.

We do not consider The Book of the Farm a perfect work:  the author indulges now and then in loose and careless writing; and this incorrectness has more frequently struck us in the later portions of the work, no doubt from the greater haste of composition.  He sets out by slighting the aids of science to agriculture; and yet, in an early part of his book, tells the young farmer that he “must become acquainted with the agency of electricity before he can understand the variations of the weather,” and ends by making his book, as we have said, a running commentary upon the truth we have already several times repeated, that SKILFUL PRACTICE IS APPLIED SCIENCE.

These, and no doubt other faults the book has—­as what book is without them?—­but as a practical manual for those who wish to be good farmers, it is the best book we know.  It contains more of the practical applications of modern science, and adverts to more of those interesting questions from which past improvements have sprung, and from the discussion of which future ameliorations are likely to flow, than any other of the newer works which have come under our eye.  Where so many excellences exist, we are not ill-natured enough to magnify a few defects.

The excellence of Scottish agriculture may be said by some to give rise to the excellent agricultural books which Scotland, time after time, has produced.  But it may with equal truth be said, that the existence of good books, and their diffusion among a reading population, are the sources of the agricultural distinction possessed by the northern parts of the island.  It is beyond our power, as individuals, to convert the entire agricultural population of our islands into a reading body, but we can avail ourselves of the tendency wherever it exists; and by writing, or diffusing, or aiding to diffuse, good books, we can supply ready instruction to such as now wish for it, and can put it in the way of those in whom other men, by other means, are labouring to awaken the dormant desire for knowledge.  Reader, do you wish to improve agriculture? —­then buy you a good book, and place it in the hands of your tenant or your neighbouring farmer; if he be a reading man, he will thank you, and his children may live to bless you; if he be not a reader, you may have the gratification of wakening a dormant spirit; and though you may appear to be casting your bread upon the waters, yet you shall find it again after many days.

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