u could easily do,
when you were idling your time in a season you consider of little
value; and, after all, this toil is bestowed in vain to obtain the
end you wish, namely, to prepare your crop _in due season_. You who
are inexperienced in the evils of procrastination may fancy this to
be an overdrawn picture--even an impossible case; but unfortunately
for that supposition, it is drawn from the life. I have seen every
incident occur which I have mentioned, both as to work being in a
forward and in a backward state."--(Vol. ii. pp. 489, 483.)

This one extract will alone illustrate the opinion we have already
expressed, in regard to the soundness and safety of the advice on
practical subjects, which our author ventures to give.

We pass over a hundred pages devoted to ploughing and sowing, and the
selection of seed. On the last of which points our inclination would lead
us to dwell--especially in reference to the steeping of seeds, a subject
which at present engages so much attention, and upon which so much
nonsense and mercantile puffing has been recently expended. But our limits
restrain us.

Whether it is that our own predilections incline us more to those parts of
his book, or that Mr Stephens writes these better--with heart and
kindliness he certainly does write[29]--we scarcely know, but we certainly
like all his chapter upon animals. _The lambing of ewes_ is the subject of
chapter fifty-four.

In all lines of life there are the skilful and the unskilful, and the
former are always the fewer in number. In reference to shepherds, Mr
Stephens says:--

"No better proof need be adduced of the fewness of skilful shepherds,
than the loss which every breeder of sheep sustains every year,
especially in bad weather. I knew a shepherd who possessed unwearied
attention, but was deficient in skill, and being over-anxious, always
assisted the ewes in lambing before the proper time; and as he kept
the ewes in too high condition, the consequence was, that every year
he lost a number of both ewes and lambs; and in one season of bad
weather the loss amounted to the large number of twenty-six ewes, and
I forget of how many lambs, in a dock of only ten score of ewes. I
knew another shepherd who was far from being solicitous about his
charge, though certainly not careless of it, yet his skill was so
undoubted, that he chiefly depen