Not the least valuable portion of the book is a brief discussion of some of the legal questions connected with drainage; the rights of land-owners in running waters, and in reference to the water in the soil; the rights of mill-owners and water-power companies; and the subject of flowage, by which so many thousand acres of valuable arable land are ruined to support unprofitable manufacturing companies.  The rights of agriculturists, and the interests of agriculture, demand the care of our governments, and the hearty aid of our scientific men; and we are glad to find a judge who, at least when off the bench, speaks sound words in their behalf.

Agriculture in the Atlantic States is beginning to attract the attention which its great importance demands.  Thorough draining is, as yet, little used among us, but a beginning has been made; and Judge French’s book will, doubtless, be of value in extension of the practice.  If any reader has not yet heard what thorough draining is, we would say, in brief, that it consists in laying tile-pipes, from one and a half to three inches in diameter, four feet under ground, at from twenty to sixty feet apart, so inclined as to drain out of your ground all the water that may be within three feet of the surface.  This costs from $30 to $60 per acre, and is in almost all kinds of arable land an excellent investment of capital,—­making the spring earlier, the land warmer, rain less injurious, drought less severe, the crops better in quality and greater in quantity.  In short, thorough draining is, as our author says, following Cromwell’s advice, “trusting in Providence, but keeping the powder dry.”

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The Novels of James Fenimore Cooper.  Illustrated with Steel Engravings from Drawings by Darley.  New York:  W.A.  Townsend & Co.

The British Museum, it is said, has accumulated over twenty-seven thousand novels written since the publication of “Waverley.”  With the general diffusion of education the ambition of authorship has had a corresponding increase; and people who were not inspired to make rhymes, nor learned enough to undertake history, philosophy, or science, as well as those who despaired of success in essays, travels, or sermons, have all thought themselves capable of representing human life in the form of fiction.  Very few of the twenty-seven thousand, probably, are wholly destitute of merit.  Each author has drawn what he saw, or knew, or did, or imagined; and so has preserved something worthy, for those who live upon his plane and see the world with his eyes.  The difficulty is, that the vision of most men is limited; they observe human nature only in a few of its many aspects; they cannot so far lift themselves above the trivial affairs around them as to take in the whole of humanity at a glance.  Even when rare types of character are presented to view, it is only a genius who can for the time assimilate himself to them, and so make their portraits life-like