XX 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE.— LITERARY NOTICES. 



f-^AND BIOGI 



BIOGRAPHICAL 



Tree Guide. By Julia Ellen Rogers. Garden 



City, New York : Doubleday, Page & 



Company. 



It is not strange that the greatest member 

 of the plant kingdom should inspire us with 

 the greatest admiration. Trees far exceed 

 us, not only in height, but in length of life. 

 They bring gifts to supply our bodily needs 

 and radiate a beauty that stimulates our soul. 

 Everyone loves the shade of the forests and 

 groves, but how few admire the trees with 

 real intelligence ! How many of us can call 

 •them by name as if they are old friends? It 

 is an unthinkable human friendship in which 

 each is ignorant of the other's name. Then 

 let us put trees on at least a similar basis and 

 learn their names. 



Miss Rogers has given us a well arranged 

 and useful little handbook. On it the pub- 

 lishers have exhibited their usual mechanical 

 excellence. 



Where Rolls the Oregon. By Dallas Lore 

 Sharp. Boston : Hough-ton Mifflin Company. 

 Price: $1.50 net. 



The author is a literary naturalist, which 

 •means a genuine lover of all phases of nature 

 with verbal skill to depict that love. He says 

 that he did not go to the Northwest to write 

 a book ; but, wherever he goes, he carries 

 with him his love for nature and his desire to 

 tell others of the things that charm him. In 

 visiting Finley and Bohlman, the well-known 

 ornithological workers of Oregon, he naturally 

 found much of interest. The volume conveys 

 ineffaceable impressions of the vast outdoors 

 of Oregon. It is good reading. If prefer- 

 ence were to be expressed as to what has 

 most closely held the reviewer's attention, 

 mention might be made of "The Butterflies 

 of Mount Hood" and "The Wild Mother." 



How to Make a Country Plaee. An Account 

 of the Successes and the Mistakes of an 

 Amateur in Thirty-five years of Farming, 

 Building, and Development : Together with 

 a Practical Plan for Securing a Home and 

 An Independent Income, Starting with 

 Small Capital. By Joseph Dillaway Saw- 

 yer. New York : Orange Judd Company. 



This is a full book. The index lists about 

 4,525 topics and 1,025 illustrations. These are 

 divided into ten chapters which seem to the 

 reviewer to cover everything in home build- 

 ing and one might also say everything per- 

 taining to the subject. Mr. Sawyer has con-' 

 densed his work with remarkable, painstaking 

 completeness. He has told the whole story. 

 In such an immense amount of material it 

 baffles the reviewer to know where to begin or 

 where to end. Sufficient it is to say that this 

 material is so thoroughly indexed that one 



can readily find in text or illustration the 

 treatment of any phase of the subject. Mr. 

 Sawyer's extended experience, somewhat 

 unique in many respects, makes him an au- 

 thority. He is well known to his friends as a 

 man who gives careful attention to every 

 detail and this book is the outcome of en- 

 thusiastic love of his life occupation. Many 

 of the illustrations are from Sound Beach 

 and vicinity and this makes the book pecul- 

 iarly appealing to the residents of this part of 

 the Connecticut coast, and yet, one in the re- 

 mote wilds of Africa would enjoy the book 

 that says so much so interestingly. The pub- 

 lishers have done justice to the encyclopedic 

 amount of material by giving it all good ar- 

 rangement and substantial mechanical appear- 

 ance. 



A History of Connecticut Its people and in- 

 stitutions. By George L. Clark. New York: 

 G. P. Putnam's Sons. 



CONNECTICUT. 

 'Tis a rough land of earth and stone and tree, 

 Where breathes no castled lord or cabined 



slave ; 

 Where thoughts and tongues and hands are 



bold and free, 

 And friends will find a welcome, foes a grave ; 

 And where none kneel, when to Heaven thev 



pray, 

 Nor even then, unless in their own way. 



Fitz-Greene Halleck. 



That he is a resident of Connecticut does 

 not explain the reviewer's interest in this book. 

 Our state has passed through a series of re- 

 markable vicissitudes. Its people have cher- 

 ished many peculiar sentiments ; all these have 

 been so well described by the author that the 

 book makes admirable reading for any one 

 whether or not he lives in Connecticut or is 

 proud of Connecticut. The word readable is 

 the keynote to which the book responds. It 

 is not a collection of dusty dates and dry 

 statistics ; it is full of human interest. The 

 author describes the amusements, the hard- 

 ships, the theology, the leather breeches, the 

 home-spun coats, the evolution of the log- 

 house into the lean-to and the gambrel-roof ; 

 he tells how the schooner has changed to the 

 steamboat, the ferry to a bridge ; how the 

 people managed Indians, wolves, rattlesnakes, 

 witchcraft, slavery, tramps and Sunday; how 

 "they erected schools, meeting-houses, whip- 

 ping-posts and pillories in every town ; how 

 they relieved the monotony of brewing beer, 

 working the loom and hoeing corn by a jour- 

 ney to Tower Hill to enjoy the luxury of a 

 moving picture of a public hanging." 



Even the native cannot appreciate his won- 

 derful little nutmeg state until he reads Mr. 

 Clark's book. 



