BOOKS AND WRITERS. 



Prof. E. F. Andrews, author of "Botany All the Year 

 Round" has brought out a new book in similar style with the 

 title "A Practical Course in Botany." This follows the se- 

 quence of studies generally in use beginning with seeds and 

 seedlings, discussing the various plant organs and ending 

 with a short survey of the spore-plants. Throughout the book 

 numerous references to agriculture and economics connect the 

 work with the environment of the pupil. This is especially 

 noticeable in the "practical questions" that follow each chap- 

 ter. In the opinion of the reviewer, however, it is a mistake 

 to combine the laboratory manual and the text-book in a 

 single volume. In physics or chemistry it may be allowable 

 to discuss the theoretical side of a problem and follow it 

 with laboratory demonstrations, but in botany it is pretty 

 certain that the experiments should come first, and be ex- 

 periments to discover some function or property and not 

 demonstrations to "show" or "prove" anything. The new 

 book may also be had bound with "A Brief Flora of the 

 United States," by Dr. W. N. Geddes. This is modelled 

 rather closely after the well-known flora in Wood's "Class 

 book of Botany" and includes all the common flowering plants 

 exclusive of a few difficult groups such as grasses and sedges 

 The families follow a sequence now in disuse but it is under 

 stood a revised flora is being prepared. The book is issued by 

 the American Book Company. 



Dr. H. S. Pepoon, the senior author of "Studies in Plant 

 Life," a book that has been used for many years as a labora- 

 tory manual in botany by the high schools of Chicago and 

 elsewhere, has recently revised this work and issued it under 

 the title of "Representative Plants." It is designed to cover 

 a year's work in botany and begins, as such works should, with 

 the structure of well known plants and ends with the less 



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