THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 11 



"Botany for Agricultural Students" by John N. Martin 

 justifies its title by drawing upon farm and garden plants and 

 practices for much of its illustrative material. In this way 

 the student who finishes a course in botany is likely to have 

 acquired a considerable amount of information about crop 

 plants. The book begins with the flower and its parts, seeds, 

 seedlings, and kindred topics, after which attention is given 

 to plant structures and their functions. Throughout the book 

 emphasis is placed upon the practical side of botany and such 

 operations as pruning, budding, grafting and propagating, 

 receive adequate attention. The second and larger part of the 

 book is devoted to the lower forms of plant life, classification 

 and plant breeding. The chapters devoted to fungi and other 

 injurious forms are well handled, but the reviewer questions 

 whether too much time is not intended to be spent on the algae, 

 mosses and ferns. The true agriculturist rarely has need of 

 such information. On the whole however, the book should 

 prove of much value in agricultural courses from the fact that 

 its treatment is really related to the farm. It is an octavo of 

 nearly 600 pages and 486 illustration and is published by John 

 Wiley & Sons, New York at $2.50. 



Practically everything that relates to gardening, however 

 remote, is dwelt upon in "School and Home Gardening" by 

 Kary C. Davis. The text is a combination of experiment and 

 comment, the latter being above reproach as to scientific ac- 

 curacy and lucid statement. Many of the experiments sug- 

 gested, however, are open to criticism because they require 

 weeks if not months for their completion. Children at the 

 age of those to whom the book is addressed are incapable of 

 maintaining interest in single experiments for so long a time. 

 The book also contains a discussion of lawn making, decora- 

 tive planting, a discussion of garden crops and methods of 

 growing them, chapters an insect and plant injuries, garden 

 calenders for the Northern and Southern States, directions 



