46 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



"Date and Date Cultivation of the 'Irag." The work is to be 

 completed in three parts, the first two of which have already 

 been issued. Parts 1 and 2 deal with the cultivation and vield 

 I if the date and the final part, which is in preparation, will 

 take up the discussion of the varieties cultivated. The parts 

 which have cippeared are extensively illustrated by maps and 

 photographs which graphically tell the story of the culture, 

 harvesting and packing of the date. The publishers are W. 

 Heffer & Sons, Cambridge, England. Part one in paper costs 

 ten shillings and part two in the same binding is priced at five 

 shilliniis. 



In sublimity — the superlative degree of beauty — what 

 land can equal the desert with its wide plains, its grim moun- 

 tains and its expanding canopy of sky? You shall never see 

 elsewhere as here the dome, the pinnacle, the minaret, fretted 

 with golden fire at sunrise and sunset ; you shall never see else- 

 where the sunset valleys swimming in pink and lilac haze, 

 the great mesas and plateaus fading into blue distance, the 

 gorges and canyons banked full of purple shadow. Never 

 again shall you see such light and air and color, never such 

 opaline mirage, such rosy dawn, such fiery twilight. And 

 wherever vou go bv land or sea. you shall not forget that 

 which vou saw not but rather felt — the desolation and the 

 silnce of the de.sert. — John C.X'.ax Dyke. 



