Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine | Page 5

is his duty to enforce the commands of his master, and to check every deviation from rectitude he may observe in the servants against his interests. It is not generally understood that he has control over the shepherd, the hedger, or the cattleman, who are stewards, in one sense, over their respective departments of labour.... He should always deliver the daily allowance of corn to the horses. _He should be the first person out of bed in the morning, and the last in it at night_. On most farms, he sows the seed in spring, superintends the field-workers in summer, tends the harvest-field and builds the stacks in autumn, and thrashes the corn with the mill, and cleans it with the winnowing-machine in winter. He keeps an account of the workpeople's time, and of the quantity of grain thrashed, consumed on the farm, and delivered to purchasers."--Vol. i. p. 221.
The practical man who reads the above detail of the steward's duties, will see at once that it must have been written by "one of themselves;" and, by its correctness, will be able to judge of the full faith which may be placed in the numerous other details upon every branch of practical farming with which the work now before us is so full.
We have brought prominently forward the above extracts in relation to the minutiae of the farmer's life--to the detailed practical knowledge which is so valuable to him, as being those upon which it appeared to us that a writer who was capable of getting up a book at all, much more such a book as this professes to be, in reference to the higher branches of the farmers' art, was most likely to fail. But these parts of the work are written not only knowingly and well, but with an evident relish for the subject. Let us turn, therefore, to the more intellectual part of the book, and see how far this part of the task has been satisfactorily accomplished.
The Book of the Farm is mainly intended as a manual for the master-farmer, accompanying him every where, and at every season of the year, counselling, guiding, and directing him in all his operations. But it has a higher and more useful aim than merely to remind the practical agriculturist of what he already knows. It is fitted, without other aid, to teach the beginner nearly every thing which it is necessary for him to know in order to take his place among the most intelligent practical men; and to teach it precisely at the time, and in the order, in which it is most easy, most useful, and most interesting for him to learn it.
The beginner is supposed by Mr. Stephens to have undergone a previous course of instruction under a practical man, and to enter upon a farm of his own in the beginning of winter. This farm is a more or less naked and unimproved piece of land, without a farm-stead or farm-house, with few hedge-rows, and wholly undrained. On entering the farm, also, he has servants to engage, stock to buy, and implements to select. In all these difflculties, The Book of the Farm comes to his aid. The most useful, approved, and economical form of a farm-steading is pointed out. The structure of barns, stables, cow-houses, piggeries, _liquid-manure tanks_, poultry-yards, and every other appendage of the farm-house, and, finally, the most fitting construction of the farm-house itself, according to the size and situation of the farm, are discussed, described, and explained. Plans and estimates of every expense are added, and woodcuts illustrative of every less known suggestion. These are not only sufficient to guide the intelligent young farmer in all the preliminary arrangements for his future comfort and success, but will, we are sure, supply hints to many older heads for the reconstruction or improvement of farm-steadings, heretofore deemed convenient and complete. The following chapter aids him in the choice of his servants, and describes distinctly the duties and province of each.
And now, having concluded his domestic arrangements, [3] he must learn to know something of the weather which prevails in the district in which he has settled, before he can properly plan out or direct the execution of the various labours which are to be undertaken upon his farm during the winter. A chapter of some length, therefore, is devoted to the "weather in winter," in which the principles by which the weather is regulated in the different parts of our islands, and the methods of foreseeing or predicting changes, are described and illustrated as far as they are known. This is the first of those chapters of The Book of the Farm which illustrates in a way not to be mistaken, the truth announced at the head of this article, that skilful