THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 79 



Who reads a book more than once and who accumulates 

 a library now^ ? Have you ever read Plutarch's Lives 

 thoroughly, Shakspeare, Paradise Lost or if so ever re-read 

 them ? Life is too strenuous and the weary man whose 

 daily toil onW provides the necessities of life with con- 

 sumption of phosphorus, cannot be wooed to thought — 

 Remember the German proverb "Ohne Phosphor, keine 

 gedinke," 



•if 

 Without doubt this expresses the opinion of a great 

 number of plant collectors, but considered from the 

 editor's view point some of it takes on a different appear- 

 ance. For instance the matter of circulation is not always 

 a matter of price. The 400,000 copies of "David Harum" 

 sold at $1.50 is a greater circulation than an^^ shilling 

 "shocker" will ever attain. Novels and short stories are 

 not in the same class with scientific publications. A 

 demand for a work of fiction may be created b}^ advertis- 

 ing, quite irrespective of the book's merits, but a scientific 

 work cannot be boomed in the same way for by no chance 

 could it possibly appeal to more than a limited number. 

 How many in your own neighborhood are enough inter- 

 ested in botany to buj^ a book of any kind on the subject ? 

 Grant Allen was one of the most charming of writers on 

 botanical subjects that ever lived, yet he abandoned this 

 w^ork to write novels because scientific writing did not 



pay. 



* * 

 * 



We seriously doubt whether the botanical public cares 

 for illustrations that do not illustrate. There are appar- 

 ent exceptions to this, for there is a certain floral maga- 

 zine issued in America with a circulation of 375, 000 copies 

 and it is illustrated exclusiveh* with wood cuts taken from 

 a seed catalogue. This circulation is probably by far the 

 largest of any botanical publication in the world but we 

 feel sure that if we began using the seed catalogue illustra- 

 tions we would not only lose our present subscribers but 

 fail to gain any others. On the other hand, the best illus- 



