REVIEWS 695 



U.S.A. by boll weevil is an anachronism (p. 36), seeing that the pest damaged 

 Georgias and Floridas severely in the year now ended. The converse of this is 

 the assertion that the Nile Delta deposits are as much as no ft. thick, whereas at 

 least one bore of 1,000 ft. has failed to penetrate them. On page 20 we find no 

 mention of the revolutionary change in agricultural practice and theory now 

 being caused in the American cotton fields by the introduction of close planting ; 

 the old practice of wide planting was based on unsound a priori reasoning, on 

 prejudice, and on platitudinous precepts, the like of which are too frequent in these 

 pages to satisfy a later generation. How can the most thorough breaking up of the 

 surface soil, even to the depth of 9 in. reached by a European plough, in any way 

 directly affect the subsoil so as to assist " the long tap-root ... to penetrate it 

 freely" (p. 19), when that taproot reaches more than 7 ft. in vertical length ? Or 

 take p. 30 literally, test it on the specific example of a single cotton seed put into 

 a letter at Barbados and posted to Khartum, and consider whether it is not 

 meaningless to say that " when a variety of cotton is introduced into a new 

 country, the conditions of its environment are changed, and the constitution of the 

 plant receives more or less of a shock." 



If the blame for these blemishes could be allocated to their true origins, the 

 author would escape criticism, but whether we refer to his pages as scientists, 

 business men, economists, statesmen or politicians, as consumers or as growers 

 of the textile raw material, we are limited exactly to the text before us, and can 

 prosecute our studies no further by any help the author gives us. 



Now, nobody dare pretend that all the wisdom of all the ages concerning the 

 world's production and utilisation of all plant textiles and papers, from cotton to 

 marram grass, can be compiessed within 231 pages, so as to be of value to all the 

 interests we have just enumerated, for all of whom the book is apparently written. 

 Such pages can only make a preliminary outline sketch and then tell us where to 

 go next, and this is what this book deliberately omits to do. 



The trouble is that there is urgent need for books which really fulfil the 

 purpose for which this one claims to be written. It is, as the preface says, a 

 matter of national importance. It will be one of Imperial importance when we come 

 to reconstruction. The textile industries are in no way on the same level as the 

 comparatively smaller engineering industries in regard to their organised technical 

 knowledge and literature ; they have necessarily lost much of their initial advan- 

 tage over imitators and competitors in other lands ; they are now striving to take 

 up the running again, not only within the walls of their mills, but also in the fields 

 which supply their raw materials, and they need the best assistance. Were the 

 need not so great we would not have criticised so adversely, but our Empire is not 

 so well off for scientific institutions and research workers that we can afford to 

 allow the platitudinous method to be followed without protest. 



L. B. 



Morphology of Gymno sperms. By John M. Coulter, Ph.D., and Charles 

 J. Chamberlain, Ph.D. [Revised Edition. Pp. xi + 466, with 462 figures.] 

 (The University of Chicago Press, 1917. Price 85. 00 net. Postage extra. 

 Weight 3 lbs.) 



Botanists owe much to the authors of this volume, not merely for the production 

 of a comprehensive work of reference upon the Gymnosperms, but also for the 

 instigation of numerous researches in their laboratories, which have been the 

 means of filling some of the more obvious gaps in our knowledge. Originally a 



