BOOK REVIEWS; 



731 



The chapter on manuring is detailed and useful, and we are glad 

 to note the importance of lime and phosphatic manures emphasized. 



Some chapters on market-fruit culture and spraying by Mr. W. E. 

 Bear, who is better known as "A Southern Grower," are of value, 

 and useful tables are added. 



Generally speaking, the work betrays careless production and 

 slipshod editing. To figure, as on page 244, a tree of ' Stirling Castle ' 

 apple as a " free grower which requires root-pruning to check excessive 

 growth " will amuse those who grow this apple and know it to be one 

 of the very worst growers of all ; and to recommend that the ' Straw- 

 berry Raspberry ' requires to be treated as the " herbaceous" autumnal 

 raspberries can only mean that the author has never seen the plant. 



A chapter on the " pollination of fruits " seems to have been added 

 as an afterthought, as no reference is made to the subject in the 

 section on " Unfruitful Trees." 



This book is decorated with many photographs with more or less 

 application to the text, and with small cuts to show methods of 

 training, &c, and contains an index. 



' A Pilgrimage of British Farming." By A. D. Hall, M.A., F.R.S. 

 8vo., 446 pp. (John Murray, London.) 5s. net. 



The publication of this book, which is a reprint of articles which 

 appeared in The Times in 1910-1912, following upon Mr. Prothero's 

 " English Farming " and the description of a tour of a somewhat 

 similar character which Sir Rider Haggard gave us in his " Rural 

 England " in 1902, are signs, if any were wanting, of the revival of 

 interest in agriculture since the end of the last century, the townsman 

 at last beginning to realize that, after all, agriculture is one of our 

 important national industries. The great difference between this 

 book and Sir Rider Haggard's is that whereas the conclusions of the 

 latter, at a time when farming had only just emerged, and in some 

 districts was only just emerging, from the great depression of 1875- 

 1895, were decidedly pessimistic, at least as regards the farmer of 

 the average holding of 200; acres, Mr. Hall, on the contrary, holds 

 that "to a man who takes the trouble to learn, and attends to his 

 business, farming now offers every prospect of a good return on his 

 capital," and he doubts " if there are many more profitable enter- 

 prises open at the present day than would be provided by a 2000-acre 

 farm on good land with an adequate backing of capital." Those 

 who think the farmer is one of a class who just muddle along might 

 note his remark that " it would be very hard for the most enlightened 

 and scientific expert to show him how to improve his business," 

 though he is speaking of a good example of the class of men farming 

 150 to 500 acres. But he admits that one often sees bad farming in 

 England alongside the best, which he attributes not so much to lack 

 of knowledge as to the low mental calibre of the man occupying the 

 land, and holds that what the ordinary farmer needs above all things 

 is not so much additional technical knowledge, which has now become 



