REVIEWS AND NOTICES OF BOOKS. 225 



Ot those written in English, some of the larger volumes on 

 the subject are excellent, others are good but have become 

 antiquated through changes in nomenclature and the numerous 

 introductions of new plants that recent years have seen, and 

 practically all are somewhat beyond the purse of the average 

 forester. A concise, accurate, and moderately priced book on 

 conifers would be a boon. 



The present work is evidently written by a lover of conifers, 

 and its author states that he writes not for the expert but for 

 "those who take up such subjects more in the light of secondary 

 and subsidiary accomplishments." The book purports to give 

 descriptions in detailed and tabular form of the various genera 

 and species that occur. A glossary is added. There is a large 

 amount of useful information in the book, and the author has 

 evidently borrowed well from the larger authorities. 



Of the two main parts the tables must be favoured as being 

 most useful, but even with these we are of the opinion that 

 the utmost care must be exercised. Tabulated methods of 

 identification are dangerous to use, even in the case of plants 

 whose identities are more easily established than are those 

 of many conifers. 



The detailed part of the book is written in a popular style, 

 and one feels occasionally that too great an amount of 

 extraneous matter is introduced. 



The author would have been well advised to have called to 

 his assistance a botanist of standing, and he might even have 

 taken the meanings of the words in his glossary from a botanical 

 dictionary. He would then have avoided many of the pitfalls 

 into which the unwary non-expert is liable to fall. 



The Theory cuid Practice of Working- Plans. By A. B. Recknagel. 

 Second Edition. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 19 17. 

 London : Chapman & Hall, Ltd. Pp. xiv + 265, 6 plates. 

 Price 10s. 6d. net. 



Of a growing series of serviceable works on forestry subjects 

 published by John Wiley & Sons this volume forms one of the 

 best, and the author is to be congratulated on the production. 

 He has brought out a volume which is valuable alike as a 

 text-book to the student and as a book of reference for the 

 forester. The revision benefits, as the author states, by the 



