oisseur
enough to keep the best bit of all for his own plate.

Besides this living spirit, which pervades all the descriptions of methods
and operations, another excellence we have remarked in these volumes is
the _kind_ of opinions given upon practical points, in reference to which
a difference of sentiment prevails among practical men. They are in
general _safe_ opinions--leaning always to the prudent side in cases of
doubtful practice. If they appear, therefore, in some cases, not to come
up to the notions of those lovers of change, who would improve agriculture
as engineers make railroads--without regard to their cost or to the
interest of the capital expended--they will appear to all sound men to be
so much the better fitted to guide the rising farmers of the present day.
These young men _must_ possess more knowledge than their fathers, if they
are to continue upon the land; but they will also soon disappear from the
land, notwithstanding their knowledge, if a balance of profit at the end
of the year be not considered an indispensable element in their system of
husbandry.

The book, as we formerly stated, is divided into four parts, embracing in
succession the proper operations to be performed in the four seasons,
commencing with those of the winter.

To the greater part of the winter operations, as described and explained
by Mr Stephens, we adverted in our former notice: there remains one topic,
however, to which, from its great national importance, we must still turn
for a little.

Among the various improvements which, in the dead season of the year, the
farmer may undertake with profit to himself and advantage to his farm, is
that of draining. Of this kind of improvement almost every farm in the
country is more or less susceptible. But how should it be done, at what
depth, and with what material? As to the depth, the young farmer who
wishes to do his work well, will neither imitate nor rely too much on the
practice of the district he comes from, or in which his own farm may
happen to be situated. If so, he will, in Ayrshire--by the advice of the
wise-acres in that county--put in his drains only twenty inches, or two
feet, in depth; in Berwickshire he will sink them to three feet; and in
Sussex he may be carried along with the rising tide to put none in
shallower than four feet. He will not trust, we say, wholly to example. He
will say to himself rather, what is the object I have in view, and what
implements