2 74 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



" Agassiz was capricious in the extreme," he says, " very versatile, attracted 

 easily by any new object or subject, and he had the faculty of almost com- 

 pletely forgetting works half done or only sketched. He lacked persist- 

 ence and steadiness at work requiring long and difficult observations. . . . 

 That something sternly practical mingled with Agassiz's habitual idealism 

 was well proved by his museum. He did not carry it out entirely as he 

 proposed to do at the start, but had he lived twenty years longer his ideal 

 museum would have become a reality. . . . Notwithstanding these serious 

 defects, it is impossible not to admire his great scientific intelligence, and 

 not to recognize his immense scientific force. No one was such an able 

 instigator of scientific researches. He had a magnetic power, and he used 

 it constantly, whatever the subject to be investigated might be. His two 

 principal passions in natural history were teaching and collecting speci- 

 mens. As a teacher he was unrivaled and unique. ... As to his other 

 passion, that of collecting specimens and organizing museums, he was a 

 man of wonderful resource." Agassiz's moral traits are also given with 

 much fullness. Many of his characteristics were racial. As his biographer 

 well says, " Agassiz's remarkable personality can not be properly under- 

 stood without taking into account the strength of his French nature." 

 The Anglo-Saxon reader especially should bear this in mind. Prof. Marcou 

 does not hesitate to go into the various controversies to which Agassiz was 

 a party and to apportion praise and blame according to his judgment. 

 The function of a critic seems to be rather attractive to him, for he goes 

 out of his way to point out defects in Mrs. Agassiz's life of her husband. 

 The word "Works" in the title of this book refers to a list of Agassiz's 

 works, reaching 425 titles, which is appended to Volume II. A list of 

 biographical articles and volumes on Agassiz forms another appendix, and 

 a list of portraits, medals, tablets, etc. , still another. A profile portrait and 

 several other illustrations are given. 



Two series of books which promise to be very useful to the scientific 

 horticulturist and agriculturist are being issued by the Macmillans. In 

 the Gardencraft Series, we have already noticed The Horticulturist's Rule- 

 book, by Prof. L. H. Bailey^ and the second of the series, also by Prof. 

 Bailey, is now before us.* Our author treats his subject both philosoph- 

 ically and practically. He first points out some of the causes of vai'iation 

 in plants, and shows that man is only rarely the direct means of originat- 

 ing varieties, but that his work consists in selecting and fixing those that 

 he prefers. In treating of crossing, Prof. Bailey insists on a distinction 

 between the cross proper — i. e., the product from a union of two varieties of 

 the same species — and the hybrid, or product of a union between difi'erent 

 species. He tells what benefits may be expected from crossing, and endeav- 

 ors to prevent too great expectations from hybridizing. The practical por- 

 tions of the volume are the third and fifth chapters. In the former are 

 given fifteen rules which should govern the breeding of plant-crosses, with 

 the reasons for them. Among these we find such maxims as the following : 

 "Avoid striving after features which are antagonistic or foreign to the 

 species or genus with which you are working." " Breed for one thing at a 

 time." "Establish the ideal of the desired variety firmly in the mind 



* Plant-breeding. By L. H. Bailey. Pp. 293, 12mo. London and New York : Macmillan & Co. 

 Price, $1. 



