SCIENCE AND THE NATION 197 



pure and applied or teclmical science is fallacious. Thus the Sadleirian 

 Professor of Pure Mathematics shows (p. 92) how Lagrange's 

 abstract conception of generalized co-ordinates led to the invention of 

 wireless telegraphy ; and the Superintendent of the Metallurgy 

 Department of the National Physical Laboratory traces the whole of 

 the accui-ate knowledge of metals with Avhich he is himself personally 

 concerned to the ap])lication of the microscope to the study by the 

 geologist Sorb}'^ in 1861. Heavy financial losses have forced upon our 

 landowners the recognition of the importance of the work of the forest 

 entomologist and the forest mycologist ; and Professor Biffen's wheat- 

 breeding is only one — though, perhaps, that Avhich most comes " home 

 to men's business and bosoms " — of the applications of the purely 

 scientific experiments of Mendel. We have never read an}^ " romance 

 of science " so fascinating as the story told by Professors Hopkins 

 and Nuttall of the gradual application of the w^ork of Pasteur by 

 Lister, Metchnikoff, Ehrlich, Manson, Ross and their fellow- workers 

 of to-day to that mastery of one disease after another wdiich has 

 transformed modern medicine from a mere congeries of empiricism 

 into an inductive science. We fully agree wdth Dr. Keeble wdien, 

 after discussing the work of Dr. Russell on soil-sterilization and that 

 of Johannsen on etherising plants, he sums up (p. 127) : — • 



" If only from the point of view of a good national investment, 

 pure science should receive large encouragement and support from the 

 State. Nor should the encouragement be financial onl}^ A wider 

 source of recruiting must be open to pure science whereby some of 

 the highest ability shall find its way into the ranks of scientific 

 workers and not so exclusively as now to the Temple and India, and 

 parts of Whitehall, Westminster and the City." 



There is necessarily a little overlapping and repetition in the 

 treatment of the related topics by various pens ; but the multiplicity 

 of interesting subjects touched upon as illustrating the main thesis 

 makes the book at least w^orthy of an index, which, alas ! it has not. 



Gr. S. BOULGEE. 



Tree Wounds and Diseases, their Prevention and Treatment ; ivitli 

 a special cliapter on fruit trees. Bj A. D. Webster. With 

 32 plates. Williams & Norgate. Price 7s. ^d. net. 



It has been gratifjdng to read of the skilful manner in which our 

 French allies have defeated the dastardl}" German mutilation of their 

 fruit trees; but Mr. Webster is fully justified in the statement in 

 his Introduction that in this country "the work of tree repair 

 is but rarely engaged in and little understood." It may, jjerhaps, 

 be true that "no book dealing exclusively with tree wounds and 

 diseases has been wTitten," although there are various w^orks, both 

 English and foreign, in which one class or other, of tree diseases 

 are better treated than they are in the present volume, and w^e are 

 not sure that an article on ' Practical Tree Surgery,' b}^ J. Franklin 

 Collins, in the Year-book of the United States Department of Agri- 

 culture for 1913, does not deal more satisfactorily with the other half 

 of his subject than does Mr. Webster. 



It is clear that the writer has a good practical experience in the 



