The story of Cobbett’s planting and seed-farming would make an interesting volume. It became the fashion, after his death, to decry his successes,[2] and to minimize his qualities as a farmer; and perhaps with some justice, as regards this latter part of his life, as his hands were always too full of more stirring matters. But he did unquestionable service to the art of planting; and in promoting the restoration of woods and coppices, which had so fatally suffered from the felling and clearing brought about by the war, and by the efforts made by so many persons to save their property by the sacrifice of its timber. And, besides this practical part of the business: ever ready to put his notions into print, he must needs produce more books, in order to popularize his plans; books, however, which have met with comparative neglect, of late years, on account of their special nature. Rural economy and domestic economy are matters which, treated as social arts, get so modified by the rapidly-changing currents of our time, that the mode of one generation is lost amid the fads of the next. But the peculiar merit of Cobbett’s books was their readableness; and, whilst such matters as the Currency and the Corn Laws could be rendered entertaining by his facile pen, it was natural that rural affairs, in which he delighted, and amongst which he heartily believed that the highest domestic felicity was to be found, should derive from that pen the highest charms. There never lived, probably, a writer to equal Cobbett in rural description: one who could, in the midst of some angry polemic, so readily turn off for a moment and present his reader with a country picture; perfectly life-like, glowing with colour and realism: who could make a mere gardening book entertaining. Whilst in Long Island, Mr. Cobbett had prepared an “American Gardener,” which he published, soon after his return to England; dedicating it to one of his neighbours out there. The “English Gardener,” published a few years later, was a reproduction of this, adapted to the differing conditions of his own country. “The Woodlands,” published early in 1825; a new edition of Tull’s old book on “Horse-hoeing Husbandry,” in 1822; and a guide for the cultivation of Indian corn, completed a useful series of books on rural affairs. All these are marked by sufficient egotism; but they are far more practical than the general run of such works. There is so much painstaking description, and so much lively illustration, that the reader is forced to take an interest in what he is reading. It is almost impossible for one to take in hand the “Woodlands,” without wishing to become a planter.