40 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



The long-expected "Fern Lovers Companion" by George 

 Henry Tilton has at last appeared. It is a fine little book of 

 some 238 pages in which are treated all the ferns of that re- 

 gion commonly known as the Northeastern States but which 

 by common consent for floral purposes goes west to the Great 

 Plains and South to the mountains of Kentucky and Tennes- 

 see. The book is very well printed and fully illustrated the 

 illustrations for the most part being from ferns in tlie author's 

 collection, but other sources have been drawn upon, such as 

 the Davenport Herbarium and various fern-books now out 

 of print. The ferns are discused in related groups the text 

 devoting two paragraphs to each species, the first of a tech- 

 nical nature and the second more popular. There is a list 

 of American and foreign fern literature, a glossary, a list of 

 the species discused with their synonomy, and directions for 

 studying ferns. The book is a most attractive addition to our 

 fast disappearing fern literature and will undoubtedly meet 

 with a warm welcome from students of ferns. It is published 

 by the author at Melrose, Mass. 



At first thought it might be hastily assumed that all the 

 different kinds of garden-books have been written, but Ella M. 

 Freeman has shown otherwise in her "Home Vegetable Gar- 

 den.". If one who knows all about gardening should walk 

 about her grounds and comment on each kind of vegetable as 

 she came to it, and later set all this down in a book it would 

 probably be very much like the one before us. It is no made- 

 to-order volume; the author undoubtedly wrote it for the 

 sheer delight of telling about her plants. The book is full 

 of information from cover to cover, but it is not of the seed- 

 catalog variety. It reads a good deal more like an essay. In 

 spite of this, or because of it, each vegetable is thoroughly dis- 

 cussed from seed-sowing to the table or the storage-cellar. 



