THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 61 



a matter depending- upon fact rather than theory, but the prac- 

 tice of farming is so rapidly becoming a science, that those 

 farmers who have had no opportunity for a study of the scien- 

 tific principles underlying the cultivation of the soil must per- 

 force turn to books and correspondence courses if they are to 

 successfully compete with the graduates of our agricultural 

 colleg-es. Nor is the instruction to be obtained by mail, a bit 

 less valuable than the same information delivered by the pro- 

 fessor in the class-room. In any case it must be put into prac- 

 tice to be of use. In many cases the instruction given whether 

 by mail or in class, is based upon the same books. Among the 

 favorite volumes for this purpose is "Agriculture" by Prof. 

 Wm. P. Brooks of the Massachusetts Agricultural College. 

 This is essentially a single volume of a thousand pages, though 

 it is divided into three good-sized volumes paged consecutively 

 and devoted respectively to Soils and how to Treat Them, 

 Manures, Fertilizers and Farm Crops, and Animal Husbandry. 

 This work is a classic in its way. It gives in intelligible 

 language, the facts which every farmer must possess to get the 

 most out of the soil and has fittingly been selected as the basis 

 of the correspondence course in agriculture maintained by the 

 Home Correspondence School of Springfield, Massachusetts. 

 It has also been adopted by many schools and colleges as a 

 text book. Prof. Brooks is no mere theorist in farming mat- 

 ters. He has for years been in charge of the four-hundred 

 acre farm of the Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment Sta- 

 tion and is familiar with all the details of practical agriculture. 

 Anyone searching for help in solving his special problem will 

 not turn to these pages in vain. Each volume is sold separately 

 for $1.25 .postpaid or the three for $3.50. 



Every book on farming, gardening or plant breeding 

 must of necessity touch upon the physiology of plants, but 

 commonly they do so only to an extent sufficient to explain the 

 particular matter under discussion. A recent book by Prof. 

 B. M. Duggar of Cornell University takes up the subject of 



