We have, in our day, been not a little tormented with second editions. We have sometimes harboured the ugly suspicion that, in the matter of new editions, publishers and authors were in league to cheat the honest public; and, under the influence of this uncomfortable feeling, we have once and again vowed never to buy the first edition of any book whatsoever. On cool consideration, we feel constrained, however, to confess that the author of this work must have endangered, if not forfeited, the high position which he holds as an agricultural writer, had he not strenuously set himself to emend, and enlarge, and in great portions to re-write his book, when a new edition of it was demanded. It is not only that, on a subject so large, completeness in a first effort might have been naturally expected to baffle any knowledge, however comprehensive, and any industry, however indefatigable; but the brief period that has elapsed since the publication of the first edition has been so fertile in agricultural progress, and so rich in scientific inquiry and experiment, that not to have noted these, and embodied their results in this new edition, must have damaged not only the work, but the author, as implying an ignorance of, or a contempt for, the advancing tide of improvement. The present is undoubtedly a very superior work to the first edition; and it seems to us now to contain a complete institute of agriculture. We venture deliberately to affirm, that in no country or language was so perfect a work on agriculture ever given to the world before; and that no work on this subject, whether foreign or domestic, can for a moment come in competition with _The Book of the Farm_. Perhaps the most remarkable feature in the work is the immense mass of varied information which it contains. _The Book of the Farm_ is indeed a many-chambered storehouse of agricultural lore--a vast repertory of information on the subjects of which it treats. To prove the erudition of the work to those that may be yet unacquainted with it, it may suffice to state, that there are above fourteen hundred references to authors, ancient and modern, continental and domestic, who have written on the subject of agriculture, and on the allied branches of art and science. The references in the work are equivalent indeed to a _Bibliotheca Agricolaris_; and, by directing him to the authorities and sources of knowledge, will enable the educated agriculturist to prosecute his inquiries on any peculiar branch of his business in which he may desire more minute information than even the text embraces. _The Book of the Farm_ is, in fact, another "Stephens' Thesaurus;" and the author must evidently be one of those robust geniuses, who can grapple with whole libraries, and reduce them to their service. Let it be understood, too, that the author's powers of assimilation are as excellent as his literary appetite; that the information is not heaped together in