icious plantations,
ought neither to be lost sight of, nor by those who address
themselves to the landlords and cultivators, be passed by without
especial and frequent notice.

Did space permit, we could have wished to extract a paragraph or two
upon the mode of planting hedges, and forming ditches, for the
purpose of proving to our readers that Mr. Stephens is as complete a
_hedger_ and _ditcher_, as we have seen him to be cunning as a
drover and a cattle surgeon. But we must refer the reader to the
passages in pp. 376 and 379. Even in the planting of thorn hedges he
will find that science is not unavailing, for both mathematics and
botany are made by Mr. Stephens to yield their several contributions
to the chapters we are now considering.

But the fields being divided and the hedges planted, or while those
operations are going on, a portion of the land must be subjected to
the plough. Next in order, therefore, follows a chapter upon this
important instrument, in which the merits and uses of the several
best known--especially of the Scotch swing-ploughs--are explained
and discussed. Here our young farmer is taught which variety of
plough he ought to select for his land, _why_ it is to be preferred,
and _how_ it is to be used, and its movable parts (plough-irons)
_tempered_ and adjusted, according to the effect which the workman
is desirous of producing. We are quite sure that the writer of such
parts of this chapter as refer to the practical use of the plough,
must himself have handled it for many a day in the field.

The part of this chapter, again, which relates to the theoretical
construction--to the history of the successive improvements, and to
the discussion of the relative merits of the numerous varieties of
ploughs which have lately been recommended to notice--is drawn up by
Mr. James Slight, curator of the museum of the Highland Society, a
gentleman whose authority on such subjects stands deservedly high.
To this monograph, as we may call it, upon the plough, we may again
refer as another illustration of the union between agriculture and
science. Mechanism perfects the construction of instruments,
chemistry explains the effects which they are the means of producing
in the soil--says also to the mechanic, if you could make them act
in such and such a way, these effects would be more constantly and
more fully brought about, and returns them to the workshop for
further improvement. Thus each branch of knowled