PHYSIOLOGY OF PLANT NUTRITION 341 



for his researches in plant pliysiology and l)iochemistry, has here 

 gathered together an immense amount of material. Papers as 

 recent as 1913 are referred to, though the author's preface is 

 dated January of this year. It may seem unpatriotic at the pre- 

 sent time, in reviewing a book written by an Austrian and pub- 

 lished in Germany, to find fault with the physiological text-books, 

 both practical and theoretical, in use in this country. They are 

 not such as place a student in a position to begin physiological 

 research ; and most botanists, who have of necessity to 

 specialize, find themselves unable to follow the advances in this 

 possibly the most difficult and one of the most attractive branches 

 of botanical study, unless they have had the good fortune to 

 graduate at one of the few universities wdiere there are lectures 

 by plant physiologists. Few students can read the language 

 fluently enough to benefit to any great extent from a German 

 text-book, but those will be able to understand from the present 

 work the methods which are now being adopted in the investiga- 

 tions concerning plant nutrition. There are twenty- seven chap- 

 ters, each of which is divided into convenient sections. Three 

 chapters are devoted to germination and the conditions and 

 various factors determining it : one each to ash analysis ; car- 

 bon assimilation ; fat, oil and wax ; nitrogen assimilation ; 

 phosphates; enzymes; tannins ; glucosides; the principal organic 

 acids, alcohols and aldehydes ; alkaloids ; rubber ; general plant 

 analysis ; sterilization of living plants ; estimation of surface 

 tension, permeability and osmotic pressure by plasmolysis ; appli- 

 cation of adsorption and capillarity to biochemical analysis ; 

 respiration ; movement and growth promotion ; growth measure- 

 ment ; measurement of gas and water movement ; transpiration ; 

 bleeding ; osmotic pressure ; reaction of sap to indicators : and an 

 appendix on normal solutions. The matter is throughout criti- 

 cally handled, and the author tells us in his preface that, with few 

 exceptions, only those methods are included which he has him- 

 self practised either in the course of his own researches or in 

 class. Full references are given to the original sources. There 

 are a large number of tables, some of which occupy two or three 

 pages. The book is exceptionally well illustrated. There are 

 many original photographs, and most of the drawings are original. 

 They are all clear and to the point. There is an index of four 

 pages and a page of corrections. The book is well printed. An Eng- 

 lish book covering somewhat similar ground, either from a theore- 

 tical or a practical point of view, would be most welcome. 



J. E. 



Plants and their Uses : an Introduction to Botany. By Feederick 



Leroy Sargent. Pp. 610, 8vo. London : Constable. 



Price 5s. net. 

 This book, which is of American origin, seems to consist of 

 two not very obviously connected parts. The first half deals with 

 economic botany under the heads of cereals, various food-plants, 

 flavouring and beverage plants, medicinal and poisonous, and 

 industrial plants. This part is very fully — perhaps too fully — 



