; .y 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



for irrigation, but for rendering the fruits of 

 the soil marketable, by processes of drying, 

 canning, wine-making, etc. 



The Love of Natnre in America. — The 



London Spectator has learned from the evi- 

 dence of books on the subject that there 

 now exists in New England a counterpart to 

 the great and growing appreciation of wild 

 Nature which has left such a mark on recent 

 English literature. Even Fenimore Cooper, 

 it admits, " painted the wild life of the woods 

 with a minuteness of detail and depth of 

 feeling that suggests that the readers for 

 whom he wrote were not less in sympathy 

 with the subject than himself. The works 

 of Thoreau and John Burroughs are now 

 American classics ; and to judge by the num- 

 ber of recent works similar in kind and ob- 

 ject, the appetite of New England grows by 

 what it feeds on. The coincidence by which 

 people of the same race, and living in the 

 same latitude, but on different sides of the 

 globe, are now eagerly expressing in a com- 

 mon language their pleasure and interest in 

 exactly the same kind of subjects and scenes, 

 though the actual birds and beasts, trees and 

 plants, are often as distinct as the two con- 

 tinents in which they are found, is probably 

 unique. There is no such analogy in taste 

 between England and any of her colonies as 

 this common love of Nature which finds al- 

 most identical expression in the prose idylls 

 of Jefferies and of Burroughs, and the en- 

 gravings of Wolf and of Mr. Hamilton Gib- 

 son." The Spectator goes on to cite from 

 the books of two or three of our Nature-lov- 

 ing authors, without giving anything like an 

 adequate exemplification of the list. It 

 might also have extended its studies and 

 brought in other sections than New England. 

 Where, for instance, can we find more faith- 

 ful portraitures of hill and ravine, forest and 

 field, and the moods of Nature in sunshine 

 and storm, frost and flood, than Charles Eg- 

 bert Craddock has drawn of her loved Ten- 

 nessee mountaius ? 



The Brooklyn Institute Biological Lab- 

 oratory. — The last, its third, was the most 

 successful season of the work of the Biologi- 

 cal Laboratory of the Brooklyn Institute, at 

 Cold Spring Harbor, N. Y. During its three 

 years of existence more than sixty persons 



have made use of the advantages afforded 

 by the laboratory, either in study or investi- 

 gation; and among these have been col- 

 lege professors, public-school teachers, phy- 

 sicians, and students of various grades of 

 schools. Of the three classes of students 

 using the marine laboratories — those seeking 

 a general knowledge of zoology and botany, 

 including medical students ; college students 

 desiring to do miscellaneous work of a higher 

 character than that of their college, or to 

 study embryology from the practical side ; 

 and those who desire to undertake original 

 research — the course of this school has been 

 especially planned for the first two classes. 

 An elementary course in zoology is arranged, 

 lasting six weeks ; courses of scientific lec- 

 tures are given by well-known experts ; a 

 special line of work in bacteriology methods 

 is offered ; and at a certain point students 

 who have taken the elementary course or its 

 equivalent are allowed to plan their work 

 each for himself. 



Home Landscape. — An editorial article 

 in Garden and Forest aims to show how 

 beauty in landscape and in our home sur- 

 roundings grows out of our honest attempts 

 to adapt the conditions of Nature to our 

 wants. In our clearings, orchard and gar- 

 den planting, and building, so long as we are 

 honest and straightforward in our work, 

 Mother Nature " stands ready to adopt it as 

 her own, and to make of it landscape rich in 

 meaning and pathos, such as no primitive 

 wilderness can show." Look for a moment 

 upon a typical valley of the interior of New 

 England. " We are standing upon the east- 

 ern wall of upland. The village, with a mill 

 or two and a church or two, lies below us at 

 the mouth of a gap in the northern hills. 

 Southward the valley broadens to contain a 

 fresh green intervale. Opposite us the west- 

 ern wall of the valley is an irregular steep 

 slope of rising woods, with numerous upland 

 farms scattered along the more level heights 

 above. The central intervale, the flanking 

 woods, the village gathered at the valley's 

 head — the whole scene before us possesses 

 unity and beauty to a degree which interests 

 us at once. And how was this delightful 

 general effect produced ? Simply by intelli 

 gent obedience to the requirements of hu 

 man life in this valley. The village grew 



