106 . THE NURSERY BOOK. 



A work of this kind has long been needed, and in the absence 

 of any sfcandai-d up-to-date work on this subject, all students of 

 Desmids will welcome the appearance of the present ' Index.' In 

 order to fally appreciate the immense convenience to the working 

 botanist in thus having collected together all the important records 

 of a species, together with its varieties and forms, there is required 

 by the student a considerable amount of previous work, entailing 

 multitudinous references to the scattered and ever-spreading litera- 

 ture on the subject. Every credit must be given to the author for 

 the excellent manner in which the book has been compiled, as well 

 as for the immense labour expended in its compilatiou, and those 

 who know with what care and exactitude Dr. Nordstedt has studied 

 these minute plants, will agree with me in saying that no one was 

 more competent to produce such a work than the author. 



G. S. West. 



Tlie Nursery Book: a complete Guide to the Multi plication of Plants. 

 By L. H. Bailey. 3rd edition. 4s. net. Macmillan & Co. 



We have here another of the excellent practical handbooks 

 of the "Garden Cr.ift" series. It appeals to the practical 

 gardener whose chief duty is connected with the multiplication-^ 

 or, as it is more technically termel, propagation— of plants. About 

 156 pages are devoted to the explanation of the varioiis modes of 

 increasing plants; and in just over 190 pages are mentioned the 

 principal genera of plants in alphabetical order, with short notes 

 after each indicating the most suitable mode of treatment. As 

 many as 152 woodcuts supplement the already lucid explanations. 

 The work is not a mere compilation ; the facts recorded have been 

 proved from practical experience in the gardens of the Cornell 

 University. Anyone who is acquainted with the " bulletins " 

 issued from that establishment, chiefly under the direction of 

 Prof. Bailey and his able assistants, will at once recognize the 

 trustworthiness of the information supplied ; and as the same 

 principles regulate the growth of plants in England as in America, 

 the British gardener cannot but gain by consulting them. 



Tliere is one small drawback to the "Nursery Book," viz. the 

 "Americanisms "—-we vise this term for want of a better — -employed. 

 To gardeners on this side of the Atlantic it sounds exceedingly 

 strange to talk of " seedage," " layerage," "cuttage," "buddage," 

 " graftage," and such-like terms. We have almost got accustomed 

 to seeing " cion " for scion; but we doubt the wisdom of coining 

 fresh terms which are at least no improvement on the older ones. 

 If this sort of thing goes on, we shall soon have "pottage" for 

 potting, "waterage" for watering, " crockage " for crocking pots, 

 " prunage " for pruning, and so on. 



With the exception of this question of terms we have nothing 

 but praise for the "Nursery Book" ; and we hope that when the 

 fourth edition appears there may be a reversion to the ordinary 

 nomenclature of garden operations. j_ "Weathers. 



