Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine | Page 3

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 Cyclop?dias, 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, the butcher, the miller, and the grieve or general overseer of the farm. We know not what other gentle crafts the still unpublished parts of the work may hereafter teach us; but so faithfully and so minutely, in general so clearly, and with so much apparent enjoyment, does the author enter into the details of all the above lines of life, that we have been deceived (we suppose) into the persuasion that Mr. Stephens must, in his lifetime, have "played many parts"--that he has himself, as occasion offered, or as work fell in his way, engaged in every one of these as well as of the other varied occupations it falls in his way to describe.
How, otherwise, for instance, should he so well understand the duties and habits, and sympathize with the privations and simple enjoyments of the humble and way-worn drover?--
"A drover of sheep should always be provided with a dog, as the numbers and nimbleness of sheep render it impossible for one man to guide a capricious flock along a road subject to many casualties; not a young dog, who is apt to work and bark a great deal more than necessary, much to the annoyance of the sheep--but a knowing cautious tyke. The drover should have a walking stick, a useful instrument at times in turning a sheep disposed to break off from the rest. A shepherd's plaid he will find to afford comfortable protection to his body from cold and wet, while the mode in which it is worn leaves his limbs free for motion. He should carry provision with him, such as bread, meat, cheese or butter, that he may take luncheon or dinner quietly beside his flock, while resting in a sequestered part of the road; and he may slake his thirst in the first brook or spring he finds, or purchase a bottle of ale at a roadside ale-house. Though exposed all day to the air, and even though he feel cold, he should avoid drinking spirits, which only produce temporary warmth, and for a long time after induce chilliess and languor. Much rather let him reserve the allowance of spirits he gives himself until the evening, when he can _enjoy it in warm toddy beside a comfortable fire_, before retiring to rest for the night." --Vol. ii. p. 89.
Then how knowingly he treats of the fat upon the sheep:--
"The formation of fat in a sheep commences in the inside, the net of fat which envelopes the intestines being first formed. After that, fat is seen on the outside, and first upon the end of the rump at the