G44 REVIEWS OF BOOKS. [Fi:b. 



Keviews of ^ooks. 



I'hc Future of the Date Palm {Phcenix dactyliferd) in India. By 

 E. BoNAViA, M.D., Brigade-Surgeon, Indian Medical Depart- 

 ment. Calcutta : Thacker, Spink, & Co. 



This little book has for its object the popularizing and the extend- 

 ing of the cultivation of the date palm in India, both for the sake 

 of its fruit and for the purpose of fuel. The author looks upon the 

 fruit of the date as invaluable in times of scarcity or famine. He 

 points out that it is precisely when owing to drought all other food 

 products become either scarce or nil that the date is most reliable, 

 and in the districts where the tree already exists and is cultivated, 

 it is always in dry seasons that the fruit reaches its highest quality 

 and greatest abundance. The tree has been cultivated, it appears, 

 from time immemorial in Sindh and along the IST.-W. Frontier 

 of India, and is supposed to have been introduced by the Arab 

 conquerors of Mooltan and Sindh about the seventh century a.d. 

 The author gives abundant statistics to prove that the cultivation of 

 the date is carried on in these districts with great benefit to the 

 population, and urges on the Government to lend its aid in estab- 

 lishing date forests in every part of the country where it is likely 

 to succeed. He invites also the interest and aid of private enter- 

 prise in the work, and names tracts, such as Eajputana, as very 

 suitable for the cultivation of the tree, but in which, owing to 

 the limited rainfall, little or nothing can at present be produced, 

 and consequently the population is the most sparse. Copious 

 information is given regarding the various modes of cultivation and 

 propagation in practice, both in India and on the Persian Gulf. 

 The book is interesting, and abounds in eminently practical 

 suggestions on what appears to us to be an important national 

 economic subject. 



Familiar Trees and Shrnhs. By G. S. BoULGEE, F.L.S., F.G.S. 

 With Coloured Plates by W. H. J. Boot. London : Cassell & 

 Company Limited. 



Pakt 6 of this work on familiar trees is just issued, and gives an 

 excellent popular history of the beech, one of our most familiar trees. 

 The coloured plate represents the tree in all the glory of orange and 

 gold of its autumn tints. The plates illustrating the " beech leaves 

 and nut, summer and autumn," are very faithful alike in drawing 

 and colourinrr. 



