THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 153 



Not all of these varieties have persisted in cultivation, 

 though enough are grown to produce a crop worth more 

 than $20,000,000 annually. One of the improvements over 

 the wild berry has been an enormous increase in size. Some 

 specimens on record measured more than a foot around 

 them. Thomas Meehan, the well known botanist, said 

 that they "might easily be mistaken for tomatoes by a near- 

 sighted observer". Eleven such berries make two quarts. 

 An immense amount of other information of this nature is 

 to be found in S. W. Fletcher's "The Strawberry in North 

 America" issued by the Macmillan Company. It gives the 

 history of strawberry growing and breeding from the be- 

 ginning of the industry in this country and forms a com- 

 panion volume to the same author's "Strawberry Growing" 

 which treats of commercial methods. The present volume 

 discusses the work of the early breeders and describes the 

 rise of the industry. It is a very interesting and entertain- 

 ing volume and all who grow berries either for commercial 

 or for home use will find much of value in it. It contains 

 more than 200 pages and costs $1.50. 



Most of the facts upon which Royal Dixon and 

 Franklyn E. Fitch have built their book on "The Human 

 Side of Trees" are well known to botanists, but it is not 

 likely that any plant student would subscribe to the in- 

 ferences drawn therefrom. It is certainly not literally true 

 that trees build cities, or pay attention to the styles, or 

 get an education, or keep a diary, or travel or go into busi- 

 ness, though being living things they may happen to be so 

 adjusted to their surroundings as to appear to use intelli- 

 gence in their activities. If one can only keep in mind 

 the fact that plants cannot think or reason, that the acts 

 attributed to them are not conscious processes, the "Human 

 Side of Trees" may serve very well to call attention to 

 many remarkable things about them. We must take ex- 



