THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 127 



the same stand but the high school teacher knows that his pu- 

 pils are little interested in types and that he must have some- 

 thing more than this to keep them interested. That something 

 may well be evolution but the text books seldom emphasize it. 

 The influence of the college is seen again in the use of the 

 entirely superfluous word scutellum for what may as well be 

 named the cotyledon of the corn. No directions for labora- 

 tory work are given though one infers from the text that some- 

 thing of the kind is expected. The author has been wise, how- 

 ever, in keeping such directions out of a text-book. Among 

 errors that a captious critic might note are the careless use of 

 terms as when a seed is called castor-bean on one page and 

 castor oil bean, on the next, the definition of a seed makes no 

 inclusion of the endosperm and though cells are mentioned fre- 

 quently there seems no adequate discussion of the subject in 

 the early parts of the book. It may be noted that the chemical 

 formula given for starch on page 103 might be taken 

 for a proteid. These, however, are minor defects. The book 

 has the merit of being well-written, and the information con- 

 veyed in understandable language and the fundamentals are 

 not obscured by a great number of exceptions. There are also 

 an abundance of good illustrations. Chapters on ecology, 

 plant breeding, evolution, plant societies and economic plants 

 complete the book making nearly five hundred pages. 



Within the year, the publishers have given us two ex- 

 ceedingly valuable books on the diseases of plants both by ac- 

 knowledged authorities on the subject. First to appear was 

 Duggar's 'Tungous Diseases of Plants" recently reviewed in 

 these pages and now we have "Diseases of Economic Plants" 

 by F. L. Stevens and J. G. Hall. This latter book begins with 

 a minimum of introductory matter relating to the origin, 

 symptoms and care of plant diseases, fungicides, sprays and 

 spraying and soil disinfection and then plunges into the task of 



