BOOKS AND CURRENT LITERATURE 



A Field Auxanometer. — A short paper has appeared^ which 

 contains the description of a cheap and, it is claimed, sufficiently 

 accurate instrument for recording growth in the field, when used, of 

 course, with a suitable plant. Indian corn is the one to which the 

 instrument has been adapted. A point of distinct interest is the rigid 

 connection between the writing pen and the growing part. It is esti- 

 mated that the finished instrument can be had for about $15 a dozen. 

 A cheap clock supplies the motor for the recording drum. While 

 adapted to the purposes of the authors, their auxanometer is not to be 

 thought too generally useful, if the reviewer's experience guides him 

 aright. Every plant presents special difficulties, and when plants 

 and purposes of such a kind are in conjunction, far more delicacy will 

 be required. A one-hour period drum will be found too rapid for some 

 purposes, since the hour-lines may traverse each other, and if growth is 

 slow, an undecipherable record will result. This condition makes ampli- 

 fication also necessary, which is not provided for in the instrument. 



The paper includes also a record of one day's growth in Indian corn 

 in the field. Elongation was found to be more rapid in the day than 

 in the night. This, the authors rightly point out, contravenes the 

 generally accepted notio«, which, they suspect, has been based on the 

 study of greenhouse plants. It may be indicated however that a good 

 deal of work, by Lock, A. M. Smith, Balls, Blaauw, not to mention 

 some observations of earlier workers, has shown that the aforesaid 

 generally accepted notion is quite erroneous. 



Any attempt to adapt or originate instruments which will be useful 

 in the field must be commended both for itself and as an expression of 

 the growing feeling of need for more exact ecological research. — Francis 

 E. Lloyd. 



Modes of Research ix Genetics. — It is not often that a conscien- 

 tious effort is made, in the early stagesof the development of a science, 

 to weigh critically the methods of attacking the subject and the philo- 



1 Collins, G. N., and Kempton. J. H., A Field Auxanometer. Jour. Wash. 

 Acad. .Sci. 4: 204-209, Apr. 1916. 



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THE PLANT WOULD, VOL. 1!), NO. S, 1916 



