282 MANUAL OF AGRICULTURAL BOTANY. AIDE-MEMOIRE BOTANIQUE. 



A Manual of Agricultural Botany. From the German of Dr. A. B. 

 Frank, Professor in the Royal Agricultural College, Berlin. 

 Translated by John W. Paterson, Ph.D., &c., Lecturer in 

 Agricultural Chemistry at the Glasgow and West of Scotland 

 Technical College, Glasgow. Edinburgh and London : W. 

 Blackwood and Sons. 8vo, pp. x, 199. Price 3s. 6d. 1898. 



That Professor Frank could write a good book for agricultural 

 students no one doubted. His extensive knowledge, his ample 

 opportunities, his position as a teacher, and his remarkable collec- 

 tions of cultivated plants, in health and disease, fitted him for 

 such a work. That he has produced a Manual of Agricultural 

 Botany is a great gain in this important aspect of applied science. 

 And that it has been carefully and clearly translated, and issued, 

 fully illustrated, at a low imce, must be a boon to students in 

 this country and America. The Manual consists of a systematic 

 portion occupying the first half of the volume, in which the 

 characters of the principal groups are well presented; while the 

 Orders that possess more importance to the agriculturist are more 

 fully treated. The remainder of the volume is devoted to anatomy 

 and physiology, these subjects being treated concurrently, greatly 

 to the interest and the instruction of the student. Everywhere a 

 keen eye is kept by Prof. Frank on those points which are of 

 practical importance to the grower of crops of any kind. If 

 farmers would master the volume — and it would repay them though 

 months were given to the task — they would have a deeper and more 

 intelligent interest in their daily work. A few pages are devoted 

 to the diseases of plants. ^y^ q 



Aide-memoire de Botanique gSnerale, anatomie et physiologie vegetales. 

 Par le Professeur Henri Girard. 1 vol in-18 de 358 pages, 

 avec 77 figures, cartonne. Paris : BaiUiere et fils. Price 3 fr. 

 1897. 

 This little book is the ninth of a series of ten natural history 

 manuals compiled by Professor Girard with the object of enabling 

 candidates for examination in the natural sciences to review in a 

 very short time the various questions which might be put before 

 them. The author has included, with the utmost brevity com- 

 patible with the omission of nothing, the subjects of the most 

 recent syllabuses. In plain English, he has produced a series of 

 cram-books, which will doubtless have a large sale, and be as com- 

 mercially profitable to the author and publisher as they will be 

 morally and scientifically injurious to the examinee. Revision 

 of work is necessary on the eve of an examination, but it should be 

 a revision of notes taken by the student himself, supplemented by 

 his drawings of apparatus or the preparations he has made in his 

 practical work. Such a review will bring back by a natural process 

 much of what he has learnt far better than by grinding through 

 the pages of a book hke the one before us, embellished with a few 

 indifferent figures. We trust that no one will translate it into 

 English. ^^ ^^ ^ 



