BOTANICAL BOOKS AND THEIR USE 135 



most excellent work and one that can hardly be 

 superseded ; but its standpoint is not modern, and its 

 morphology is in places out of harmony with pres- 

 ent opinions. Another excellent work that has had 

 wide use is Bessey's " Botany," of which there is an 

 abridged edition called " The Essentials of Botany." 

 Clark's " Laboratory Manual of Botany ' is a work 

 prepared in the modern spirit, but it has not been 

 favorably received by those competent to judge of its 

 merits from a scientific point of view. The various 

 laboratory guides by Spalding, Setchell, and others 

 have already been referred to. There are, of course, 

 yet other text-books, including several written in Eng- 

 land, in Germany, and in France. So far as text-books 

 for elementary work are concerned, it is more likely 

 that one written in any particular country will be better 

 adapted to methods of instruction in vogue there than 

 would be the case with one written in another country. 

 And it must also be remembered that, owing to the 

 advancement of science, those books written by ac- 

 tive scientific experts, and those that are newest, are 

 likely to be the best. 



There remains yet one other class of books to be 

 considered, -manuals for use in classification. The 

 classic work for northeastern North America is 

 Gray's " Manual," sixth edition. The system of 

 classification represented by it, however, is being gen- 

 erally abandoned, and a new edition is needed. A 



