The Daily Life of Ow. Farm. By the Rev, W.
Holt Mover. (Brad- bury and Evans.)—This i3 a pleasant, gossiping book, containing ex- tracts from a diary which extends over about five years, and in which the author, a well-known writer on matters agricultural, and a gentle- man who contrives to mske fanning pay, has jotted down some of his most noteworthy experiences. We frankly confess our inability to judge 'of the practical value of the advice which Mr. Beever gives to those who would follow in his steps. Bat that it has the look of being very sensible, that it takes in all sorts of subjects, some of them such as may well Interest readers whose farming is limited to a rood or so of garden, that the writer's tone when he deals with human things is very wise and kindly, and that generally the Daily Life of Our l'arni is a good book to read, we °an affirm with complete assurance. We notice one curious story which Mr. Beaver tells it peones of the superstition of his neigh- bours. A ferryman's son was drowned. His friends put quicksilver into a new baked loaf, threw it into the river, which was then in flood, and ran along the bank confident that where it stopped there would the body be found. Unhappily, they lost sight of their guide. Now we remember that Sir Samuel Baker tells us, in his "Nile Tributaries," how he gained great glory with a tribe of Arabs by tolling there how they might find the body of a girl who had been drowned. The method was to throw a log into the river and watch where the eddies of the stream carried it, the log being of the size of the missing girl. What the loaf and quicksilver mean is beyond us, but probably they mean something. These queer expedients, though they often look like mere charms, generally have a meaning.
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