1885.] liEVIEWS OF BOOKS. 139 



Keviews of 3ooks. 



The Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England. Second 

 Series. Vol. xxi. Part I. — April 1885. Loudon: John Murray. 



THE meclianical novelties already legion in connection with the 

 utilization of live-stock food from silos, are conspicuous 

 in Mr. Bell's report on the ]\Iiscellaneous Implements exhibited at 

 the Shrewsbury Show. Our agriculturist readers will not pass 

 over Sir John Lawes' exposition of Sugar as a Food for Stock, nor 

 Mr. Ling Eoth's report on Franco - Swiss Dairy - Farming. The 

 medallion portrait of the late Dr. Voelcker, incorporated in the text 

 of Dr. Gilbert's obituary, recalled to us impressions made long ago 

 in the laboratory of the late Professor George Wilson in Edinburgh. 

 His present biographer only well portrays how the thoroughness, 

 practicality, and Christian character then apparent ripened through 

 a useful life. Mr. Little's summary of the report on Agricultural 

 Education in Europe, as well as Professor Fream's report on 

 Canadian Agriculture, contain forestal items to which we may 

 elsewhere refer. Meanwhile our readers may be interested in the 

 concluding portion of Mr. Little's essay on the Agriculture of 

 Glamorganshire. "While the demand for timber for the collieries 

 is so great as to cause the imports to the port of Cardiff alone in 

 1882 to be 226,175 tons of pit- wood and sleepers, and 71,928 

 tons of deals and deal - ends, the local supply is insignificant. 

 Landowners would do well to plant more of their mountain land. 

 Of 23,687 acres already thus occupied, the greater part must be 

 in coppices, which are grown chiefly in the northern districts and 

 on the sloping hillsides, and which, when cut down and cleared 

 after thirty years' growth, realize at present prices from £18 to £20 

 per acre. The stools are left to produce another crop, thus without 

 any treatment giving a like result at the close of another thirty years. 

 Mr. Little has found that where Scotch fir, spruce, alder, oak, 

 and birch have been judiciously planted on exposed situations on 

 the hillsides, a clear income of 10s. or 12s. per acre has been the 

 average result. The following figures of the average cost of planting 

 are given : — 



Clearing the ground of rubbish, briars, etc.. 

 Draining, viz., open drains, 30 in. wide at the top, 

 and 6 in. at the bottom, ..... 

 Plants (miscellaneous) and planting. 



