26 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



in the vocation of agriculture, have no more place in a general 

 high school course than have the methods and technical phases 

 of commerce, telegraphy, music, photography, pharmacy, as- 

 saying or a multitude of other subjects which the high school 

 course deals with theoretically without aiming to turn out 

 skilled operatives. The advocates of agriculture education in 

 the high school should be satisfied to have accurate instruction 

 given in the general principles including sufficient illustrative 

 practice of the vocation to .enable the pupil to master the de- 

 tails in his own peculiar way. — Josiah Main, University of 

 Tennessee. 



KEY TO THE FAMILIES OF THE MONOCOTYLEDoNES. 

 The beginner frecjuently has considerable difficulty in 

 naming his plants by the use of modern keys,, because of the 

 strictly scientific character of the latter. It is the aim of the 

 maker of a key, to put into such descriptive terms as shall 

 make the identification of a plant certain from the key alone, 

 and while this is a prime requisite from the point of view of 

 the scientist, a more general key which shall gradually sift 

 out his plants is likely to be more useful to the botanizer who 

 recognizes his favorites quite as much by their color and 

 habitat as by more scientific characters. We have therefore 

 prepared a key to the monocots based upon the more obvious 

 characters of the plants, and one which makes even a simple 

 lens superfluous. If this meets with the favor of our readers, 

 we hope to issue keys for othc. divisions of plants. The key 

 is strictly dichotomous or forked. Of each two lines, one is 

 the opposite of the other. Lines which do not end with a 

 family end with a number which refers to two other lines 

 farther down the page. The letters and figures in parenthe- 

 sis after each family indicate the pages upon which the 

 families will be found in the latest editions of Gray's Manual 

 and Britton's Flora. 



