the want of some directing principle--to look about for some
favouring star to guide our wanderings upon the deep. To the
tremblirg needle of science we must now turn to point our way.
Feeble and uncertain it may itself appear--wavering as it directs
us--and therefore by many may be depreciated and despised--yet it
will surely lead us right if we have faith in its indications. Let
the practical man then build his ships skilfully and well after the
best models, and of the soundest oak--let their timbers be Kyanized,
their cables of iron, their cordage and sails of 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 Cyclopædias, 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