120 The Botanical Gazette. l A P ril > 



employed, with facilities for doing good work both for his employers 

 and for science. Why may we not hope that other and various kinds 

 of commercial enterprises may find it profitable to make use of the 

 services of well trained botanists? The science is not likely to lose 

 anything by it, and there are possibilities of considerable gain. 



CURRKNT LITERATURE. 



Minor Notices. 



Education for March contains an article by Prof. Conway MacMil- 

 lan in which the evils of the common three-months course in botany 

 are vigorously exposed, as they have been many times before, and will 

 need to be many times more. The theme is an inexhaustible one and 

 the remedy proposed will be as polymorphous as the writers are nu- 

 erous. For example: in our judgment the remedy lies in the educa- 

 tion of the teacher and not necessarily in the change of course. 



Books on the diseases of plants are increasing. The third one in the 

 English language has just been issued, and imitates its predecessors in 

 form, size, and in its British origin. The work is by Dr. A. B. Griffiths, 1 

 and deals with the injuries to plants brought about by plant, animal 

 and other agencies. A large number of plant affections are treated in 

 a very brief manner, and in most instances a cure or preventive is 

 given. Two drawbacks to the usefulness of the work are prominent: 

 the inadequate accounts of the maladies, and the rather antiquated 

 character of part of the information that is included. The author has 

 made a praiseworthy attempt to provide (suggest does not seem to be 

 the right word I remedies and preventives, but they are largely founded 

 upon general principles, such as: destroy all infected plants, apply a 

 solution of iron sulphate, topdress the land with gas-lime or quicklime. 

 England is far behind the United States in the knowledge and use of 

 specific remedies for plant ailments. 



Dr. Roland ThaXtkr has issued a supplementary note (Proc. Am. 

 Acad. p. 261, presented Jan. 14, 1891) to his former paper on N. Am. 

 Laboulbeniacea. The additions of a single season have been so un- 

 expectedly large and important that it has been thought wise to defer 

 the promised mono graph. With the present additions, the species of 



Griffiths, A. B — The diseases of crops and their remedies: a handbook of 

 economic biology for farmers and students, pp.174 Illustrated 12°. Lc- D " 

 don: George Bell & Sons, 1890. 2s. fid. 



