The Earth's Bounty. By Kate V. St. Maur. (Macmillan and
Co. Ts. 6d. net.)—This book is a story of amateur farming. "Amateur," we say, not by way of depreciation, for affairs seem to have been managed efficiently and with good result, but because the farmers were not brought up to the business. "We were true Metropolitan tramps who had chased fame and fortune half over the world, and had only succeeded in gathering a few stray laurel leaves which were fast dying for want of sufficient lucre to keep them alive." This means, We presume, a succis d'estime in literature. Happy people who retrieved their fortunes by farming Prophetic Virgil with his fortunatos nimium agricolas ! The book is full of interest from beginning to end for those who have a liking for such themes ; from the chapter on winter lambs—you arrange your sheep families so that the children are born at Christmas—through all the succession of agricultural themes, rotation of crops, silos, poultry-keeping, fruit-growing, dairy, horses, quail and wild duck, and goats. The circumstances, it must be remembered, are American. "A dear, old-time homestead" with twelve acres was, indeed, at "a ridiculously low rent at £36" a year. And what are we to say of one hundred and sixty acres in addition at £48 ? It works out at Cs. the acre, quite the ideal at which Mr. Lloyd George is aiming,
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