THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 123 



ary in tone, artistic in dress, and comprehensive in its scope — 

 having departments of leading articles, contemporary dis- 

 coveries, educational advances, editorial comment, reprints of 

 botanical classics, book reviews, biographical and other news ; 

 and it should cover these subjects so systematically that noth- 

 ing of consequence would be missed and no teacher or other 

 person of botanical interests could afford to go without it. ' 

 Dr. Ganong makes the mistake of attributing the lack of such 

 a publication to a weakness on the book side of botany. The 

 real cause is due to a weakness on the pocket-book side. Hav- 

 ing been concerned in the publication of no less than seven dif- 

 ferent botanical publications five of which are still doing busi- 

 ness though far from Dr. Ganong's ideal, the editor is inclined 

 to doubt whether a magazine of the kind outlined would ever 

 prove successful. Both this magazine and The Plant World 

 started out to become just such magazines but failed to receive 

 the support of the very people supposed to be most interested, 

 and later the proposed Doriieria has been abandoned for the 

 same reason. At the end of its second year The Plant World 

 had less than 300 paying subscribers and this magazine was 

 not much better off when it completed two years of work. As 

 a matter of fact the botanists of the country seldom subscribe 

 for publications in their line. The institution with which they 

 are connected subscribes for a copy, of course, and they de- 

 pend upon this for their information. Since this magazine has 

 been published we have received nearly ten thousand requests 

 for sample copies, but, alas, our circulation lacks several hun- 

 dred to reach that attractive number. Botanical magazines, 

 like everything else, are subject to evolution, and those that 

 are now doing business illustrate very well the survival of the 

 fittest. The ideal magazine of the botanist can be kept alive 

 just as long as some kind-hearted individual will finance it, but 

 left to itself it has no more chance of surviving than some new 

 "creation" of the gardener under similar circumstances. The 



