1885.] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



219 



The Canadian Forester's Illustrated Guide. 

 — By J. C. Chapais, Montreal. Eusebe Senecal et 

 Fils, publishers. 1885. 



The object of this work is to make Canadian 

 farmers and others acquainted with the trees com- 

 posing Canadian forests. Accurate drawings of 

 the trees, branches and seeds are given ; all this 

 must have great value. The author gives his view 

 of the " Duties of the Government." No govern- 

 ment forests " unfit for cultivation " should be sold 

 to settlers ; but if the land will produce good 

 timber it is not clear why it should be unfit for 

 cultivation. Then he thinks no person should be 

 allowed to cut any tree that does not exceed a cer- 

 tain size. When forest land is sold, the settler 

 should be obligated to keep a certain acreage in 

 forest. Sportsmen must be watched, that is, 

 special police must be employed. P"or the en- 

 couragement of reforestation, he thinks premiums 

 should be given by agricultural societies or even 

 the government. In every way possible he would 

 teach farmers their interest in forest planting. As 

 to the prevention of forest fires, Mr. Chapais is the 

 first writer we have met with who insists that the 

 owners of forest lands should be compelled to clear 

 away the debris left by the woodman, or at waste 

 in the forest. He would have the woodman's 

 work finished by fire in the winter season, and 

 prohibit all burning of brush between the first of 

 June and the first of October. Just how this 

 would work we do not know. It would be very 

 hard work to collect dead material properly when 

 snow is on the ground. Still it is in this line that 

 we have to look for relief from forest fires. 



The Jesup Collection of Woods of the 

 United States. — By Prof. C. S. Sargent. New 

 York: D. Appleton & Co. 



Morris K. Jesup, the President of the American 

 Museum of Natural History, New York, collected 

 specimens of all the woods of the United States, 

 and submitted them to Prof. C. S. Sargent to ar- 

 range and elucidate. Only a few have not yet 

 been secured. This work by Prof. Sargent is in- 

 tended as a guide to the collection. Life-size col- 

 ored drawings are still in preparation. It gives an 

 account of everything relating to trees as wood 

 that can be ascertained, so far as they are trees of 

 the United States, and is undoubtedly the most 

 intelligent contribution to dendrology that has 

 ever appeared in our country. 



Gray's Botanical Text Book. — Professor 

 Gra>'s Text Book went through five editions under 

 the sole supervision of the author. When the 



sixth was called for botany had so far advanced 

 that Dr. Gray had to commit portions of the work 

 to other hands. It was diVided into four volumes, 

 first. Structural Botany, from his own pen, and 

 which appeared several years ago. Sketch of the 

 natural orders, which we hope he will yet give us. 

 Cryptogamic Botany committed to Professor Far- 

 low's care ; and Physiological Botany by Pro- 

 fessor Goodale. The last is to be the second 

 volume, of which part the first is now before us. 

 When complete it will be probably the most popu- 

 lar Text Book of Botany that has appeared in any 

 country. 



Five Acres too Much. — By Robert Barnewell 

 Roosevelt. Orange Judd Company, New York. 

 New Edition. 



When "Ten Acres Enough" appeared many 

 went wild over the enormous profits supposed to 

 be made out of a few acres of ground, and thou- 

 sands lost about all they had saved in trying to 

 do what the author of that work said had been 

 done. They had certainly enough before they 

 got through. This book is a capital take-off of 

 the extravagances of that ten-acre affair, and the 

 fact that a new edition is called for shows that it 

 is well appreciated. We do not know of a pleas- 

 anter book to while away an hour in a garden 

 chair. 



Mushrooms of America: Edible and Poi- 

 sonous. — By Julius A. Palmer, Jr., Boston: Pub- 

 lished by L. Prang & Co. 1885. 



There is no more universally appreciated vege- 

 table than the mushroom. A very large number 

 of species are edible. But numbers of species are 

 poisonous, and the fear of eating the noxious spe- 

 cies prevents people from using numbers that may 

 ' be collected near every one's door. Messrs. Prang 

 could not have undertaken a more useful work 

 than to give full sized colored illustrations of all 

 of these classes, so that even a child may learn 

 what to choose and what to avoid. Aside of the 

 utility of the task, they are beautiful works of art 

 that will be welcome to any one's library table. 

 They are not too large to be inconvenient, but are 

 each species printed on card-board by itself, and 

 all in a portfolio. They can thus be used for lec- 

 tures or parlor talks, and are just the thing for use 

 in schools or colleges. 



Fruit Culture. — By W. C. Strong. Boston : 

 Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1885. 



Numerous works have appeared from time to 

 time on fruit culture and kindred topics. One 

 would think there was no room for more. But in 



