July 28, 1898] 



NATURE 



29] 



on this side of the globe ; their application necessarily 

 differs according to climatal and economic environment. 

 The American territory, however, is so vast that differ- 

 ences of environment are as great in different parts of 

 the Union as they can be between the old Continent 

 and the new. 



Business men are keen in the growth, the purchase, 

 and the sale of plants in both countries. The enormous 

 increase in the cultivation of fruit and flowers for market 

 in the vicinity of London and other great towns is one of 

 the most remarkable features of the last quarter of a 

 century, but one which the economists have not yet 

 fully realised. 



The mania for cultivating certain classes of plants — 

 for instance, orchids — has led in certain special cases to 

 an enhancement of value which seems preposterous, 

 though it must not be forgotten that there are hundreds 

 of other plants of equal beauty and interest the price 

 of which may be reckoned in pence. 



The extravagant use of flowers for decorative purposes 

 by persons who, for the most part, care little and know 

 less of the plants they utilise, is a phenomenon quite as 

 marked, if not more so, in the States than here. In this 

 country we have, happily, nearly abandoned the floral 

 devices where battleships, mail-carts and other incon- 

 gruous things are simulated in flowers, and carpet- 

 bedding is gradually becoming less offensive here, though 

 in full blaze in the States. 



Withal, gardening for gardening sake is at present less 

 prevalent in the States than in the older countries. The 

 repose, the refinement, the seclusion, the interest attach- 

 ing to the culture of plants and the maintenance of a 

 garden, are relatively less observable in the new than in 

 the old country. America, moreover, although she has 

 given us botanists of the first rank, has not yet furnished 

 gardeners to rank with a Knight, a Herbert or a Lindley. 

 That such men may be looked for in the future is, we 

 think, evidenced by the superior quality of the American 

 horticultural hand-books, and by the multiplication of 

 experiment stations. We are not speaking of estab- 

 lished text-books, but of the flood of gardening literature 

 which is now being poured out, the quality of which is 

 often in inverse proportion to the bulk. 



Prof Bailey's " Garden- Making " is original and 

 suggestive, and the most mechanical operations are 

 illumined by thoughtful comment and quaint remark. 

 It is as well to say that the book is intended for gar- 

 deners who pursue the art on a large scale for commercial 

 purposes. The ordinary gardener would be scarified — 

 the word is appropriate— by the " plows," harrows, and 

 " cultivators " here figured, and the amateur would banish 

 from his " borders " such fearsome weapons and those 

 who used them. 



Nematode worms cause much destruction in Enghsh 

 gardens, but the .•\merican gardener, it seems, sterilises 

 the soil by allowing it to become thoroughly frozen 

 before use, a practice which could not always be fol- 

 lowed here. The second section of the book is devoted 

 to the subject of laying-out the garden. The author's 

 guiding principle is that the planting should be done 

 with the definite object of producing a picture, however 

 small. Meaningless planting is very properly deprecated, 

 and numberless suggestions are given for planting which 

 NO. 1500, VOL. 58] 



shall be at once pleasant and appropriate. The latter 

 part of the volume is devoted to lists of hardy plants, 

 fruits and vegetables, suitable for cultivation in the 

 Northern States. 



The " Pruning-Book " is marked by the sanie char- 

 acteristics as " Garden-Making." Artificial pruning 

 serves to regulate the struggle for existence among 

 buds, to favour those which are required for the pur- 

 poses of the gardener, and to obviate and nullify the 

 competition with others. The operations of the gar- 

 dener thus differ from natural ones in the circum- 

 stance that they are effected with a definite object 

 in view ; whilst in nature, that bud survives which 

 is best adapted to the conditions. Wounds and their 

 mode of healing receive much attention, and we note 

 that Prof. Bailey recommends an application of Bor- 

 deaux mixture as a dressing for wounds, a practice 

 which, so far as we know, has not been followed in this 

 country. In the matter of pruning and training we have 

 not much to learn from our cousins ; indeed it seems, 

 from the quotations in Prof. Bailey's book, as if we were 

 the instructors in this case. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 

 The Diseases of the Lungs. By James Kingston Fowler, 



M.A., M.D., F.R.C.P., and Rickman J. Godlee, M.S., 



F.R.C.S. Pp. XV + 707. Plates v. 1060 Illustrations. 



(London : Longmans, Green, and Co., 1898.) 

 The collaboration of a physician and a surgeon for the 

 purpose of producing a text-book of diseases of the lungs 

 is a priori likely to be successful. It has long been quite 

 usual to incorporate into text-books on medicine a chapter 

 by a surgeon upon the surgery of the chest ; but the pre- 

 sent book, so far as we are aware, is the first of its kind. 

 A perfect knowledge of the capabilities of surgery is 

 essential to the physician, and although a relatively small 

 part of the volume before us is from the pen of Prof. 

 Godlee, his contributions to it lend to the book a very 

 special value to the physician. 



The book begins with a chapter on the anatomy of the 

 chest by Prof. Godlee, in which are numerous illus- 

 trations ; the author's reputation as an anatomist is well 

 maintained, and all the anatomical points of importance 

 in the surgery and medical diagnosis of chest disease are 

 well emphasised. The medical part of the volume is 

 introduced by a chapter on physical diagnosis. Nine 

 chapters are devoted to pulmonary tuberculosis, and 

 together form a very exhaustive monograph upon the 

 subject. So much has been written upon the pathology 

 of tuberculosis by pathologists, that m a work like the 

 present, written by a physician, one naturally turns to the 

 clinical part, and especially to treatment. From this it 

 appears that Dr. Fowler shares the general opinion of 

 the value of the so-called open-air treatment of phthisis, 

 especially when combined with forced feeding, as prac- 

 tised at what may be termed the sub-alpine sanatoria 

 abroad. These sanatoria are now not wanting in England 

 and Wales, and it is to be hoped that all consistent with 

 medical ethics will be done to make them well known. 

 Serum treatment, including under this term the " tuber- 

 culines," and the antiseptic treatment, are not spoken of 

 very favourably by the author. Prof Godlee contributes 

 a chapter upon the surgical treatment of pulmonary 

 cavities, and one upon injuries of the lungs. The subjects 

 of haemoptysis, pulmonary syphilis, pneumothorax, are 

 exhaustively treated. The volume concludes with a 

 short essay on clubbing of the fingers and toes, contain- 

 ing a photograph and skiagram obtained from a patient 

 suffering from this condition ; the latter showing that the 

 ends of the terminal phalangeal bones are not enlarged. 



