60 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



ginner must have books that describe many of the things with 

 which he will later become familiar in practice but the mere 

 recitation of a text relating to agriculture is not agriculture in 

 any worthy sense. It is to be hoped that the authors, who are 

 especially fitted for the task, will later give us a manual for 

 practical work to accompany their excellent text. The book 

 contains more than two hundred illustrations making it fur- 

 ther attractive to the young student. Since the main features 

 of agriculture do not vary much with the region, all who are 

 interested in any phase if the subject will find this a very use- 

 ful book. It is published by the MacMillan Company at $1.20 

 net. 



As the diseases of plants have become better known there 

 has grown a nee'd for an authorative book on the subject. This 

 has now been supplied by B. M. Duggar's "Fungous Diseases 

 of Plants." The book is one of the most complete and satis- 

 factory volumes that we have seen. It begins with nearly fifty 

 pages devoted to culture methods and the technique of handl- 

 ing and staining. This and the next few pages on Physiologi- 

 cal Relations will be chiefly of interest to the student and in- 

 vestigator but the remainder of the book, some four hundred 

 pages is a practical treatise in the diseases of plants in which 

 each form is discused with regard to its occurrence, symptoms, 

 the fungus that causes it, and methods of control. Copious 

 citations of literature of the subject make it easy for any 

 who desire to go fully into any phase of the subject. From the 

 book we learn that plant diseases are caused by a vast number 

 of fungi coming from all the classes of these plants. The as- 

 comycetes and the fungi imperfecti furnish by far the largest 

 number of organizations causing diseases in plants but the 

 basidiomycetes are not far behind. The bacteria supply a com- 

 paratively small number of harmful species. The book is well 

 and extensively illustrated and written in a style that any 



