AGRICULTURAL SCIE.VCE. 123 



needs and capabilities. To these as well as to the embryo farmer 

 i\Jessr-. (jriftiu's two publications are bound to be of much assis- 

 tance and interest. Mr. Herbert Ingle's handbook on Elemen- 

 tary Agricultural Chemistry" should interest them liecause the 

 author spent some years in South Africa as Chief Chemist in 

 the Transvaal Department of Agriculture, and is therefore in 

 a position to illustrate some of his teachings by means of 

 examples drawn from this country. The need of local colour- 

 ing in some text books -locally used is often felt, because of the 

 diversity of conditions that separate between South Africa and 

 some of the countries more highly organised as to their systems 

 both of technical education and of intensive cultivation. Such 

 a need, in respect of zoology, for instance, was met in Professor 

 Gilclirist's book on " South African Zoology." ]\lr. Tngle's 

 handbo<")k. however, does not aim at being distinctively South 

 African, and so the author is in no sense to be blamed because 

 that ]")ronounced colouring is not as prominent as in Dr. 

 Gilchrist's book: on the other hand, though less pronounced, the 

 touches of South African colouring are by no means absent. In 

 a way. Mr. Ingle almost seems to apologise for putting in these 

 touches : he thought it advisable, he says, to give some acco-uit 

 of the products of tropical ag'riculture. " because the book was 

 prepared while the author was in touch with many of the crops 

 and agricultural practices of South Africa " ; and again, the 

 references to the composition as well as to the amount of ash 

 constituents in the food of animals are defended on the ground 

 that though not felt to be of much importance in Europe, where 

 diet is varied, their importance is considerable " in sucli 

 countries as South Africa, where the usual food of draught 

 animals is. composed almost entirely of cereals." Now many a 

 South African student of agricultural science will think that 

 these apologiae are supererogatory : rather would he wish that 

 more of the illustrations apologised for had been given. 

 Amongst those quoted are noticed a few results of investigations 

 of rain made at Pretoria, some analyses of veld soil and ant 

 heap soil from Christiana, an ascripti(5n to the supposed presence 

 of sodium carbonate in many South African streams of the 

 muddy condition of their waters, a reference to a South African 

 practice of screening plants from the early morning sun, several 

 analyses of South African fodders, a more detailed mention of 

 Lounsbiuw's Cape experiments on tick-destruction, the use of 

 lime and sulphur dips at the Cape, and last, though not least, 

 the Cape weights and measures. Those who study a book like 

 this because of the general agricultural chemical information 

 contained in it — and they, doubtless, make up by far the greater 

 number of its readers — will find, in addition to a few dozen 



=■•' Iiv^le, Herbert, B.Sc, F.I.C., F.C.S., Elementary Agricultural Chem- 

 istry. Crown 8vo., pp. ix, 250. 2m\ ed. London : C. Griffin & Co., Ltd., 

 1913. 4s. 6d. 



