NOTES AND COMMENT 



Dr. H. C. Cowles, of the University of Chicago, is organizing an 

 International Phytogeographical Excursion to visit the United States 

 in the late summer of 1913. A number of European plant geographers 

 have already signified their intention of joining the excursion, including 

 several of the men who accompanied the tour of the British Isles in 1911. 

 The Transcontinental Excursion of the American Geographical Society, 

 which is now traversing the United States, includes among its number 

 two well known botanists, Dr. Gunnar Andersson, of the University of 

 Stockholm, and Wladimir Dubianskij, of the Imperial Botanical Garden, 

 St. Petersburg. Such international excursions are becoming very fre- 

 quent and popular, and those to which we allude will do much to stimu- 

 late interest in the natural features of the United States. 



We are glad to see that the editors of the series of Monographs on 

 Biochemistry, which is being published by Longmans, Green and Com- 

 pany, are construing their subject in the broadest possible manner. The 

 last volume to appear is on Soil Conditions and Plant Growth, from the 

 hand of Dr. Edward J. Russell, of the Rothamstead Experimental Sta- 

 tion. The entire series is well worthy of the attention of botanists, 

 including such subjects as The Nature of Enzyme Action, The Vegetable 

 Proteins, Colloids, etc. 



A very sane and practical course of nature study work has been out- 

 lined by Mrs. Gregson, an Englishwoman, in her small book The Story 

 of Our Trees (Cambridge University Press). A series of twenty-four 

 lessons, following the course of the school year, is devoted to suggestions 

 for elementary work on the lines which form the basis for scientific for- 

 estry. British materials are used, of course, throughout the book, but 

 it would be easy for American teachers to select native forms to illus- 

 trate a similar course. 



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