13 FEBRUARY 1932, Page 28

FARMER'S GLORY By A. G. Street

Farmer's Glory, by A. G. Street (Faber and Faber, 7s. lid.), is au account of the life of a farmer's son since the beginning of this century. Mr. Street has a good eye, a good memory, and a pleasant discrimination, though he may he rather inclined to sentimentalize the good old days before the War. On the farni where his father farmed in comfort and paid the wages of many skilled men, the son is now carrying on with difficulty with a quarter of the number and some of those unskilled, and this naturally seems to hint a decline. Nevertheless his hope for the future will render the reader -ready to forgive this, and his refusal Jo join in- the more unfair of the farmer's usual complaints will be a welcome change to the townsman. The real reason for reading the book, however, is that it tells the story of a life now rapidly vanishing, a life which produced many fine characters and curious incidents and abounded in old customs and the like. Mr. Street, who grew up in the midst of it, has reason to cherish all his memories, and he certainly adds to the library of English country life a book worthy to stand in the same section, though not on the same shelf, as its classics.