Durham: Growing Tomatoes by Tip-Cuttings 



41 



generation the sacrifice of a number of 

 fruits was not offset by the advantage 

 gained by a shortened growing period. 

 Microscopic examination of 20 of 

 these leaves showed 56-70 bundles at 

 the junction of the petiole and main 

 stem. Each leaflet or sprout is formed 



of 4-7 



these 



of 



the main 

 break up 

 from the 



by the separation 

 bundles from the series in 

 system. These 4-7 bundles 

 into 16-28 a short distance 

 emergence from the main system. The 

 last leaf left averaged eight bundles at 

 the base and 17 in the middle, breaking 

 up as veins emerge. 



Flower buds appear 10-30 days after 

 the emergence of the sprout from the 

 stem. Fertile flowers appear in the first 

 cluster. 



While the total production and size 

 of the plants decrease nearly 50% each 

 generation the average number of bun- 

 les does not decrease. 



Summing up the experiment it seems 

 safe to say that plants from leaf- 

 cuttings in tomatoes show a noticeable 

 increasein production in the first genera- 

 tion of cuttings from the parent plant, 

 but do not warrant consideration com- 

 mercially in succeeding generations. 



An Introduction to General Biology 



Elementary Biology, by Benjamin 

 C. Gruenberg, Julia Richman High 

 School, New York. Pp.528. Boston, 

 Ginn & Co., n. d. 



Professor Gruenberg has related 

 plant material with animal, including 

 human, material, in a helpful way. 

 His point of view is "that we have to 

 do with constant changes that need to 

 be understood and need to be con- 

 trolled." He takes great pains to avoid 

 anthropomorphism, as well as to make 

 the work actually interesting. 



Naturally so comprehensive a work 

 can not be authoritative in every detail. 

 Thus the remarks about prepotency 

 (p. 307) are antiquated. The account 

 of Mendelism is inadequate, the "law 

 of dominance" in particular being over- 



stated. An allusion to "the American 

 brand of cattle" (p. 451) will be unin- 

 telligible to most readers. The list of 

 supposed Mendelizing characters in 

 man is inaccurate. Too much faith is 

 placed in experiments supposed to show 

 how new characters originate (p. 462). 

 The classification of races of man (p. 

 488) is obsolete. 



The principal defect of the book 

 might be considered to be the little 

 attention paid to eugenics which is 

 dismissed with a small paragraph. 



Most of the deficiencies of such a 

 textbook will be made up by the in- 

 structor, no doubt. If every student 

 in the elementary schools could master 

 the contents of such a book as this, 

 education would produce a better type 

 of citizen. — P. P. 



The Social Reactions of Defectives 



A Study of Personality of De- 

 fectives WITH A Social Rating 

 Scale, by S. D. Porteus. Publications 

 of the Training School at Vineland, 

 N. J., Dept. of Research. No. 23, Dec, 

 1920. Pp. 24. 



Dr. Porteus gives a convincing criti- 

 cism of methods of measuring the 

 defectiveness of individuals by mental 

 tests alone. The personality, too, 

 must be taken into account, he insists, 

 and the criteria for this are principally 



the social reactions of the individual. 

 He therefore presents a scale intended 

 roughly to measure the traits in an 

 individual which may cause social 

 inadequacy. The work is suggestive 

 and interesting, but necessarily incon- 

 clusive for the reason that the subjects 

 from which it was made, — namely, 

 pupils at the Vineland Training School 

 —had not been subjected to the actual 

 test of a normal environment in most 

 cases. The bases of judgment are there- 

 fore essentially hypothetical. — P. P. 



