New England and its Neighbours. Written and Illustrated by Clifton
Johnson. (Macmillan and Co. 8s. 6d.)—This is a very pleasant and instructive volume. It takes us through the country and among the people British readers know best as they are described in the stories of Miss Mary Wilkins, and introduces us to workshops and logging-camps, white mountains in winter snow and forests in course of clearing. The illustrations are exceed- ingly pretty and most generously numerous. Some of them, it must be said, would do very well for pictures of rustic life in old England, but we like them none the less for that. Others bring vividly before us the greater boldness and magnificence of American scenery. On the whole, the volume attracts us more as a picture-book than as a reading-book. The letterpress is just a little inclined here and there to descend into twaddle or to meander into tediousness. But there are good things in it; and some of the agricultural industries described are strange to English experience, and therefore justify elaborate detail. Such is the cranberry growing and picking in the Cape Cod country.
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