f the most approved
make and material--let their sailors be true men and fearless, and
let stores be providently laid in for the voyage; but let not the
trembling needle of science be forgotten; for though the distant
harbour he would gain be well known to him--without the aid of the
needle he may never be able to reach it.

In thus rigging out his ship--in other words, in fitting up his farm
and doing all for it, and upon it, which experience and skilful
practice can suggest--he cannot have a better guide than the book
now before us.

THE BOOK OF THE FARM is not a mere didactic treatise on practical
agriculture, of which we already possess several of deserved
reputation; nor yet a laborious compilation, systematically arranged,
of every thing which, in the opinion of the author, it should
interest the farmer to know. Of such Cyclopaedias, that of Loudon
will not soon find a rival. But, as its name implies, The _Book of
the Farm_ contains a detail of all the operations, the more minute
as well as the greater, which the husbandman will be called upon to
undertake upon his farm--in the exact order in point of time in
which they will successively demand his attention. Beginning at the
close of the agricultural year, when the crops are reaped and housed,
and the long winter invites to new and peculiar, and, as they may be
called, preparatory labours, the reader is taught what work in each
succeeding month and season should be undertaken--why at that season
for what purpose it is to be done-in what way it can best be
performed--how at the least cost of money and the smallest waste of
time--and _how the master may at all times ascertain if his work has
been efficiently performed_.

We confess that we have been much struck with the wide range of
_practical_ subjects on which the author gives, in such a way a to
show that he is himself familiar with them, the most minute
directions for the guidance at once of the master farmer himself,
and for the direction of those who are under his orders. We have
satisfied ourselves that by carefully _examining_ the contents of
this one book, we should be prepared not merely to pass an
examination, but actually to undertake the office of public examiner
in any or all of the several crafts and mysteries of the farm-builder,
the weather-seer, the hedge-planter, the ditcher, the drainer, the
ploughman, the cattle-feeder, the stock-buyer, the drover, the
pig-killer, the fat cattle seller, t