REVIEWS AND NOTICES OF BOOKS. 95 



in mind. A fair, but by no means exhaustive, bibliography is 

 appended to each chapter. 



The book is well illustrated and interesting to read and is 

 one which will prove useful to the forest practitioner, the user 

 of forest products, and the forestry student. Professor Brown 

 has promised further works on this important subject of utilisa- 

 tion, and we look forward with interest to their publication, 



J. M. M. 



The Harvest of Japati. By C. Bogue Luffman. T. C. & E. C. 

 Jack, Ltd., London and Edinburgh. 12s. 6d. net. 



This work is described by the author as a book of travel, 

 with some account of the trees, gardens, agriculture, peasantry, 

 and rural requirements of Japan. He claims that while it holds 

 some facts of interest and value for Japanese statesmen, students, 

 and publicists at home and abroad, it incidentally should have 

 value for tree-lovers, gardeners, artists in landscape, students of 

 design, and naturalists in varying fields, not so much for what 

 it describes as for what it suggests and offers to them. It may 

 also, he says, inform and amuse the general reader. We 

 heartily endorse these claims. The book consists of twenty 

 chapters, two of which are devoted to the gardens and two to 

 the " Little Trees." While the author asserts that timber is not 

 the precious and indispensable thing some people would have 

 us believe, he would reserve the best natural forest areas of each 

 region. The beauty of wood is recognised everywhere in Japan, 

 and fine shapes in decorative work are used not only in good 

 houses but even in the poorest and meanest villages. 



He appraises Japan at a high agricultural value, and declares 

 that the country is capable of producing twenty times as much 

 as it does at present, with the same number of hands and no 

 greater outlay. He was astonished to find that the vast bulk 

 of the country is in a state of nature, and that there is room for 

 three or four times the population without crowding. If the 

 land available was put to profitable use, the native field open 

 for settlement and development is vast beyond the conception of 

 the Japanese. " Land development is by far the most important 

 subject confronting Japan : for whatever the value and prospects 

 of trade ; whatever the value of timber used at home, exported, or 

 regarded as a decorative feature and asset of the landscape; 



