20 



Hic Journal of Heredity 



whitewash their trees in the winter to 

 reduce the danj^'er that sunny weather 

 in sprinj< may cause premature flowerin<^ 

 and subsequent iniur\- by freezinjj; 

 of the youn<i fruits. 



ThL' an'.ilo<^\' b-jtween the cacti and 

 the ]jolar bear may, then. l)e real. As a 

 coat of white fur, l:)ecause of its noncon- 

 ductivity of heat and cold, may be useful 

 to an animal that is exposed to the 

 fierce sun in the lon<( days of the arctic 

 summer, so the dense hair of the sha^<^y 

 cactus may serve as a protection against 

 extremes of heat and cold. The devel- 

 opment of shaggy coats in the Andine 

 cacti is in line with the other sjjecializa- 

 tions that the\' hax'c adopted to enable 

 them to exist under extreme conditions 

 of exposure that plants of many other 

 families are unable to tolerate. 



Compared with most other flowering 

 plants, the cacti are enormously special- 



ized, the plant body being reduced to 

 mere thickened stems. The leaves, 

 which are such important organs in 

 most of the flowering ]jlants, are either 

 lacking altogether or are represented in 

 merely rudimentar\' form. In Opnntia 

 floccosa the leaves are found only on the 

 young shoots, comijletel\- hidden in the 

 dense covering of hairs. They are the 

 .small cones with spiny tijjs that can 

 be seen among the hairs in Fig. 6. 



That adaptations are difficult to 

 interpret does not mean that they are 

 the less real. A single character may 

 serve adaptive ]Jurposes in a variet}- 

 of ways, the more the better, and, in the 

 ability of i^lant and animal life to jjro- 

 duce characters which lend themseh'cs 

 to environmental selection ma)' properh' 

 be sought the explanation of the 

 evolutionary processes which are the 

 crowning marvel of life. 



Economics and Eugenics 



ESSAYS IN SOCIAL JUSTICE, by Thomas 

 Nixon Carver, Ph.D., LL.D., David A. Wells 

 Professor of Political Economy in Harvard 

 University. Pp.429. Price, $2.00 net. Cam- 

 bridge, Harvard University Press, 1915. 



Eugenics consists of a foundation of 

 biology and a superstructure of socio- 

 logy and economics. Galton em])ha- 

 sized the two jiarts in due i)roportion, 

 but until recentl\' sociologists and 

 economists have been indifterent or 

 hostile to eugenics, and ha\-e left it in 

 the hands of biologists, who have 

 naturally tended to emphasize the 

 biological princii)les underlying eugenics, 

 but have paid too little attention to their 

 application. Prof. Carver (although 

 he hardly alludes to eugenics by name) 

 has made a valuable contribution to 



applied eugenics in these essays, in 

 which he considers the nature of a 

 strong state and the w'ays in which its 

 strength may Idc increased. Starting 

 from Darwinian jjrinciples, he concludes 

 that ]jroperly controlled comjjetition 

 offers the best hope, but that direct 

 action is also needed to limit the 

 numbers of the unprodtictive and in- 

 efficient. The fundamental doctrines of 

 economics are described in language free 

 from technicalities and tested, in effect, 

 by the criterion of eugenics. Those who 

 are interested in seeing eugenic reforms 

 actual! \' jnit into effect cannot afford to 

 overlook this book, which marks a very 

 important step in the coordination of the 

 various sciences which make u]) applied 

 euirenics. 



Growth of Provision for 



Describing the prol)leni of caring for 

 the feebleminded. Dr. Walter E. Fer- 

 nald contributes a valuable review to 

 the first issue of Mental Hygiene, the 

 new c|uarterly magazine of the National 

 Committee for Mental Hygiene. Most 

 of the United States now make some 

 provision for mentally defective ])er- 

 sons, Ma.ssachusetts taking first rank 

 in this respect, while Ohio, Minnesota 



the Feebleminded 



and Iowa ha\e alwa\s been leaders. 

 In the following, there is no state in- 

 stitution of any kind for either feeble- 

 minded or epileptics: Alabama, Alaska. 

 Arizona, Arkansas. Delaware. District of 

 Columl)ia, Florida. Ceorgia, Louisiana, 

 Mississij)])i, Nevada. New Mexico, 

 South Carolina. Tennessee. Utah and 

 West Virginia. In some of these, stejjs 

 have been taken to reniedv the lack. 



