A closing observation or two, however, we beg to offer. We look upon a good book on agriculture as something more than a lucky speculation for the publisher, or a profitable occupation of his time for the author. _It is a gain to the community at large,--a new instrument of national wealth_. The first honour or praise in reference to every such instrument, is, no doubt, due to the maker or inventor--but he who brings is into general use, merits also no little approbation. Such is our case with respect to the book before us. We shall be glad to learn that our analysis of it contributes to a wider circulation among the practical farmers of the empire, of the manifold information which the book contains, not so much for the sake of the author, as with a view to the common good of the country at large. It is to the more general diffusion of sound agricultural literature among our farmers, that we look for that more rapid development of the resources of our varied soils which the times so imperatively demand. To gain this end no legitimate means ought to be passed by, and we have detained our readers so long upon the book before us, in the hope that they may be induced to lend us _their_ aid also in attaining so desirable an object. We do not consider _The Book of the Farm_ a perfect work: the author indulges now and then in loose and careless writing; and this incorrectness has more frequently struck us in the later portions of the work, no doubt from the greater haste of composition. He sets out by slighting the aids of science to agriculture; and yet, in an early part of his book, tells the young farmer that he "must become acquainted with the agency of _electricity_ before he can understand the variations of the weather," and ends by making his book, as we have said, a running commentary upon the truth we have already several times repeated, that SKILFUL PRACTICE IS APPLIED SCIENCE. These, and no doubt other faults the book has--as what book is without them?--but as a practical manual for those who wish to be good farmers, it is the best book we know. It contains more of the practical applications of modern science, and adverts to more of those interesting questions from which past improvements have sprung, and from the discussion of which future ameliorations are likely to flow, than any other of the newer works which have come under our eye. Where so many excellences exist, we are not ill-natured enough to magnify a few defects.