THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 59 



ber of up-to-date seedsmen who can supply our wants at trifling- 

 expense much better than the government can ever hope to do, 

 the need for a government distribution of free garden seeds 

 has forever passed though our legislators appear not to have 

 discovered the fact. If the seeds sent out by congressional 

 distribution were something out of the ordinary very little 

 could be said against this time-honored custom, but as a matter 

 of fact the seeds are of the commonest varieties such as may 

 be purchased for a few cents at the nearest corner grocery. 

 The free seed humbug originated in a praiseworthy attempt 

 to secure for our citizens improved varieties of vegetable and 

 flower seed, but it has long since ceased to function in this 

 capacity. It is true our government has a large force of ex- 

 perts ransacking the earth for new and valuable decorative 

 and food plants and many have been discovered but these are 

 not distributed to the general public as the free seeds are. The 

 editor has had the pleasure of trying out several of the promis- 

 ing novelties discovered by the government explorers and has 

 a high regard for the efforts of the Department of Agriculture 

 in making new and valuable plants known, but if the free seed 

 distribution cannot, in like manner, supply us with seeds of the 

 more desirable and rare species it seems about time this par- 

 ticular form of legislative activity was abandoned. 



BOOKS AND WRITERS. 



The Plant World formerly of Binghamton, New York, 

 Washington, Denver and Tucson has moved to Baltimore. The 

 current volume has been slightly increased in size and much 

 improved typographically. 



Dr. William Trelease, for nearly fifteen years director of 

 the Missouri Botanical Garden recently resigned his position 

 in order to have more leisure for scientific work. He has 

 since been succeeded by Dr. George T. Moore formerly pro- 

 fessor of botany in Washington University. Dr. Trelesase has 



