Those who, like ourselves, take an interest in the diffusion of improved agriculture, scientific, and practical--and especially of our own agricultural literature in other countries--will be pleased to learn, not only that the work of which the title is prefixed to the present article, as well as the others upon agricultural chemistry to which we have referred, have made their way into the common stock of the book-stores of the United States, but that the editing of the American reprint of the second edition of the _Book of the Farm_ has been undertaken by our friend Professor Norton, of Yale College, (may his shadow never be less!) so well known and esteemed in Scotland, where he obtained the Highland Society's £50 prize for a chemical examination of our native oat, which was published in their Transactions. He is a worthy representative of the "country of steady habits" to which he belongs; and we hope his countrymen will be discriminating enough to appreciate his own character and scientific labours, as well as the value of the books he undertakes to bring before them. FOOTNOTES: [1] Stephens' _Book of the Farm_, Second Edition, vol. I. [2] In a recent number of the _North British Agriculturist_, it is stated that an agricultural stoker, who thought himself qualified to discourse on the uses of science to agriculture, had astonished a late meeting of the Newcastle Farmers' Club by telling them that the only thing science had yet done for agriculture was to show them how to dissolve bones in sulphuric acid; and that chemistry might boast of having really effected something if it could teach him to raise long potatoes, as he used to do, or to grow potato instead of Tartary oats, as his next-door neighbour could do. No wonder the shrewd Tyne-siders were astonished. [3] Where ¶ (_pilcrow_,) or paragraph, is placed at the side of the verse. THE SYCAMINE. I. The frail yellow leaves they are falling As the wild winds sweep the grove; Plashy and dank is the sward beneath, And the sky it is gray above. II. Foaming adown the dark rocks, Dirge-like, the waterfall Mourns, as if mourning for something gone, For ever beyond its call. III. Sing, redbreast! from the russet spray; Thy song with the season blends: For the bees have left us with the blooms, And the swallows were summer friends. IV. The hawthorn bare, with berries sere, And the bramble by the stream, Matted, with clay on its yellow trails, Decay's wan emblems seem. V. On this slope bank how oft we lay In shadow of the sycamine tree; Pause, hoary Eld, and listen now-- 'Twas but the roaring of the sea! VI. Oh, the shouts and the laughter of yore-- How the tones wind round the heart! Oh, the faces blent with youth's blue skies-- And could ye so depart! VII.