14 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



We have been reminded again of the littleness of the Government — for our deal- 

 ing is not with individuals — in thus extracting without paying for, the marrow 

 of all our agricultural journals, (to be gratuitously re-distributed,) by having just 

 read what follows, in the last, that we have seen of the Londoji Gardcner\< 

 Chro7iicle, edited by that liberal and renowned scholar Professor Lindley, one of 

 the Commissioners appointed by the British Government to investigate the causes 

 of the Potato Disease. 



The Farmer's Fbiend: a Record of Recent Die- \ farm matters, is so vmch more disthiguished 



coveries, Improvements, and Practical Suggestions 

 in Agriculture. 8vo. Smith, Elder, and Co., 65 

 Cornhill, London. 



It ought to be a good book, for it is just the 

 cream of the Editor's agricultural library. 

 Profes.«cJly so : he has simply skimm.ed the 

 various numbers and joicrnals of the farmer's 

 periodical literature, and transferred the 

 produce to his own pages. And there is no 

 doubt that it is a good book. Containing as it 

 does the best of everything communicated to 

 our own columns and those of other agricul- 

 tural periodicals, it could not be odiervvise. 

 The only question for consideration is, wheth- 

 er or not the public will patronize a scheme 

 involving so entire an entering into other peo- 

 ple's labors as this. We do not think it ought. 

 No doubt a compilation is none the worse for 

 its being a professed compilation ; but the 

 idea of publishing every six months a selec- 



by its boldness than by its justice, that cer- 

 tainly we shall not speak a good icord for it 

 Nevertheless we have no objection to let the 

 editor say one for himself. The following is 

 an extract from the Preface : 



" To the editors of the several journals who 

 have so kindly and liberally permitted the 

 Editor of this book to avail himself of their 

 respective publications, he begs to offer his 

 cordial and grateful acknowledgments. He 

 hopes that the value of the extracts which he 

 has made, may induce many to have recourse 

 to the original sources for the information 

 which, in this work, they can, for the most 

 part, only have in a fragmentary form ; and 

 that thus, at least, he may have helped to ad- 

 vance the great cause of agticultural improve- 

 ment ; a cause the promotion of which is dai- 

 ly becoming a subject more momentous antl 



tion from the pages of the best neto books on \ vital. 



What miserable cant is this ! When you have seized and cracked another 

 man's nuts and distributed the kernel gratuitously to the public, you would per- 

 suade him that the taste of these would induce people to go more eagerly to buy 

 up the hulls ! How considerate this in Uncle Sam ! How polite ! Well, there is 

 a virtue, called the suaviter en modo, which, it cannot be denied, has its charm, 

 as exhibited in the courtesies even of the robber on the Mexican highway, when, 

 with a pistol at your head, he most gracefully begs to have the honor of becom- 

 ing your banker. 



There is this, however, to be said in behalf of the compiler complained of by 

 Professor Lindley, who, to make up his book, " skimmed the various numbers and 

 journals of the farmer's literature and transferred the produce to his own pages.'' 

 He paid at least the cost of paper and printing, out of his own pocket, whereas 

 when Uncle Sam turns agricultural editor he makes up his manual out of the 

 cream of other people's labor ; paying for the publication of it out of the general 

 public treasure, and then bestows it gratuitously not on men unable to buy, but 

 on partisan favorites of Members of Congress. All the agricultural editors of 

 the Union — except ourselves — are but so many caterers, whose materials, gather- 

 ed up at their own cost, are seized upon by the Government, lying in wait 

 for them, as they come in from the fields where they have been collected, with 

 much pains, and in the plentitude of its power condemns them as lawful prizes. 

 Were an individual to commit such piracy, the law would make him amenable. 

 Even the jackall, commonly called the lion's provider, is only required by the 

 king of beasts to start the game for his master ; but our king of editors, the U. S. 

 Government, requires his purveyors to run it down and to bring it in to be laid at 

 his royal majesty's feet. 



That The Farmers' Library has been spared from much mutilation would per- 

 haps be mortifying to our vanity, did that not lead us to ascribe the omission to that 



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