2 
From Henry P. Sartwell, M.D., of Pennyan, N. Y. — 
After a thorough examination of Wood’s Class-Book of Botany, 1 
have no hesitation in pronouncing it superior to any work now in use 
as a text-book, and every way better adapted to the use of beginners. 
The analytical tables are a great improvement, and will very much as- 
sist the student in the analysis of plants. The union also of Physiolo- 
gical and Practical Botany will be duly appreciated by the botanical 
student. I have compared many of Mr. Wood’s descriptions with the 
plants, and find them uncommonly correct. I shall take pleasure in 
recommending the work, as a text-book, in all our schools where the 
science is taught. HENRY P. SARTWELL, M.D. 
From President Hitchcock, of Amherst College. 
Ihave examined with a good deal of interest, Mr. Wood’s Class- 
Book of Botany; and I am glad to find that it comes nearer what 
seems to me to be wanted in most of our Colleges and Academies, than 
any work with which I am acquainted. But what will render Mr. 
Wood’s work peculiarly acceptable to a large portion of students, is, 
that while he has given a condensed summary of structural and physio- 
logical botany, he has added descriptions of all the native and most of 
the cultivated plants of the United States north of the latitude of 
Washington, D. C., and thus rendered it unnecessary for the scholar 
to obtain two separate works. And though this may seem to some to 
be truckling to a penny-wise system of economy in the study of science, 
et with a large proportion of students in the country, the alternative 
ies between adopting it and not studying plants at all. The work of 
Mr. Wood appears to me extremely well adapted to most of our Col- 
leges and Academies. His tables of Analysis appear to me to be an 
improvement upon the analogous tables presented by Lindley in his 
Ladies’ Botany ; and they must afford much assistance to the beginner. 
EDWARD HITCHCOCK, 
President of Amherst College. 
From Dr. Gould, Boston. 
I have'examined the “Class-Book of Botany,” by Alphonso Wood, 
and think it well designed and well executed. The elementary portion 
is brief but comprehensive, conforming to the latest discoveries in vege- 
table physiology, and-well illustrated by wood-cuts. The definitions 
are perspicuous and well arranged. The classification according to the 
Natural System is accompanied by ingenious synoptical tables, leading 
to the discovery of the genera under their Natural Orders. It professes 
to give also a Flora of the Northern United States; and so far as I can 
judge, the catalogue of plants is very complete, and the descriptions of 
them seem sufficiently accurate and minute, so as to leave little else to 
be desired by the student of Botany. Combining, as it does, so gooda 
digest of elementary and descriptive botany for the region, in so small 
a space, it appears to me worthy of high commendation, and destined to 
extensive use. AUGUSTUS A. GOULD. 
From the American Journal of Arts and Sciences. 
This work is constructed on the Natural System, and has been a great 
desideratum for several years. Its elements of Botanical Science con- 
tain a faithful, clear and definite view of the principles taught by De 
Candolle, Lindley, Gray, Torrey, &c., the Classes, Orders and Genera 
ave all founded on the same authorities, and its descriptions of speci- 
mens, comprising all the plants of New England, the Middle and West- 
