* * * * Farming, by Mr. Edward C. Ash
(Methuen, 12s. 6d.), is a good book. Some of it would interest the general reader, as well as the specialist ; but the man whom it would best fit is the so-called gentleman farmer, the man who brings a good general education to bear on the special business of farming. The botany of the farm is discussed rather perfunctorily ; but the more room is thereby left for emphasis on stock, especially cattle and horses, or machinery, which is well illustrated, and on marketing. In these days we look at all books on the theme for an explanation of the absurd contradiction that producers, cheek by jowl with the best markets in the world and in control of good land in a congenial climate, cannot make their business pay. Mr. Ash, like the Government, puts what hopes he has in two reforms : first, in marketing ; and in more than one passage he touches a high literary level in his description of auctions and rural markets as now organized. Second, in an immense increase in dairy produce.
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