The methods of fattening them are afterwards described; and for a mode of securing a new-laid egg to breakfast every winter morning, a luxury which our author "enjoyed for as many years as he lived in the country," we refer the reader to page 256 of the second volume.
Besides the feeding of stock, one other in-door labour demands the attention of the farmer, when the severity of winter weather has put a stop to the ploughing and the draining of his land. His grain crops are to be thrashed out, and sent to the market or the mill. In this part of his work Mr. Stephens has again availed himself of the valuable assistance of Mr. Slight, who, in upwards of 100 pages of closely printed matter, has figured and described nearly all the more useful instruments employed in the preparation of the food of cattle, and in separating the grain of the corn crops. The thrashing machine, so valuable an addition to the working establishment of a modern farm-steading, is minutely explained—the varieties in its construction illustrated by wood-cuts—and the respective merits of the different forms of the machine examined and discussed. With the following, among his other conclusions, we cordially concur.
"I cannot view these two machines without feeling impressed with a conviction that both countries would soon feel the advantage of an amalgamation between the two forms of the machine. The drum of the Scotch thrashing-machine would most certainly be improved by a transfusion from the principles of the English machine; and the latter might be equally improved by the adoption of the manufacturing-like arrangements and general economy of the Scotch system of thrashing. That such interchange will ere long take place, I am thoroughly convinced; and as I am alike satisfied that the advantages would be mutual, it is to be hoped that these views will not stand alone. It has not been lost sight of, that each machine may be said to be suited to the system to which it belongs, and that here, where the corn is cut by the sickle, the machine is adapted to that; while the same may be said of the other, where cutting by the scythe is so much practised. Notwithstanding all this, there appears to be good properties in both that either seems to stand in need of." —Vol. ii. p. 329.
Other scientific, especially chemical information, connected with the different varieties of grain, and the kind and quantity of food they respectively yield, is incorporated in the chapters upon "wheat, flour, and oat and bean meal," to which we can only advert, as further illustrations of the intimate manner in which science and skilful or enlightened practice are invariably, necessarily, and every where interwoven.
* * * * *
And now the dreary months of winter are ended—and the labours of the farmer take a new direction.
"Salvitur acris hiems gratâ vice veris et Favoni,"
* * * * *
"Ac neque jam stabulis gaudet pecus, aut arator igni."
But we cannot follow Mr. Stephens through the cheerful labours of the coming year. Our task is so far ended, and from the way in which the whole of the long weeks of winter are described, the reader must judge of Mr. Stephens's ability to lead him safely and surely through the rest of the year.