144 



NATURE 



[April 24, 19 19 



unnatural ; it is not even fitted for civilised con- 

 ditions. Too many lives are lacking* in health, 

 happiness, and real efficiency. What Mr. Har- 

 grave pleads for is more outdoor education and 

 a renewed enthusiasm for vigour. Modern educa- 

 tional methods have tried to dispense with the 

 natural individual recapitulation of racial history, 

 and the result has been a dismal failure. Mr. 

 Hargrave pleads for real sojourning with wild 

 Nature, camp education, tribal training for boys, 

 hardihood camps for young men, adolescence 

 initiations, and open-air meditation. Perhaps 

 there is a tendency to exaggerate the importance 

 of tribal training; perhaps the author is not quite 

 sound in his view of human instincts and their 

 origin ; perhaps it is not very fortunate to speak 

 of "that process of natural selection known as 

 Evolution"; perhaps the practical difficulties in 

 the way of methodical open-air education for large 

 numbers are under-rated ; but there is no doubt 

 that the book is full of the true eugenist enthu- 

 siasm and of valuable suggestions for making 

 much of outdoor life and Nature's school. It ex- 

 presses the boy scout's idea raised to a higher 

 power. 



Two general remarks we venture to make in 

 reference to both books : (a) Half a loaf is better 

 than no bread, and if a teacher cannot go all the 

 way either with the open-air education of Mr. 

 Hargrave or with the "spiritualised" education 

 of Dr. Hayward and Mr. Freeman he may go 

 some way ; and (fo) the relative failure of 

 past educational endeavours is not wholly due to 

 •imperfect methods ; it is largely due to imperfect 

 material. Who is bold enough to set limits to 

 what improved nurture can do? but a sober- 

 minded vision cannot ignore the sad limitations 

 of inborn nature. Yet one remembers a famous 

 answer given to Nicodemus. J. A, T. 



OVR BOOKSHELF. 



The Cultivation of Osiers and Willows. By 

 W. P. Ellmore. Edited, with Introduction, by 

 Thomas Okey. Pp. x + 96. (London : J. M. 

 Dent and Sons, Ltd., 1919.) Price 45, 

 The growth of osiers, as willows used for basket- 

 making are popularly called, was a declining in- 

 dustry before the war, owing to foreign competi- 

 tion. From Germany, Holland, and Belgium we 

 received, year after year, not only increasing 

 quantities of osiers, but also large importations of 

 baskets and basket-ware, as well as huge con- 

 signments of hoops for herring barrels, which are 

 the product of a year or two's extra growth of 

 the common species. Alarmed at the decline of 

 an important local industry like basket-making-, 

 the Board of Agriculture, in order to encourage 

 the extension of the area under willow cultivation, 

 published a series of articles by Mr. W. Paul- 

 grave Ellmore on the subject in its Journal for 

 191 1 and 1912, which were reprinted in 1913 as 

 a booklet—" Board of Agriculture, Miscel- 

 NO. 2582, VOL. 103] 



laneous Publications, No. 18." The present hand- 

 book is an enlargement of this, and is well worthy 

 of the attention of farmers and landowners who 

 have land suitable for the growth of willows. 

 Osiers, it is necessary to point out, require good 

 land in order to succeed, such as low-lying alluvial 

 tracts beside rivers and streams, and they fail 

 miserably on wet, undrained, swampy, or peaty 

 soils. 



Mr. Ellmore gives sound information on the 

 cultivation and harvesting of the osiers and on 

 the preparation of the rods for the market. "A 

 chapter on the numerous varieties which are used 

 gives no botanical details, but is of interest in 

 pointing out the special uses, adaptations to soils, 

 etc., of these puzzling forms, which are generally 

 supposed to have arisen through hybridisation of 

 the four or five species under which they are 

 classed. Another chapter deals with insect pests 

 and methods of control. A final chapter treats 

 of the three willows which are grown for their 

 timber. 



Standard Tables and Equations in Radio- 

 telegraphy. By Bertram Hoyle. Pp. xiv+159. 

 (London: The Wireless Press, Ltd., 1919.) 

 Price 95. net. 

 In his preface the author claims that no such com- 

 plete book of tables and equations exists for the 

 use of radio engineers. It is difficult, however, to 

 see the guiding- principle he has adopted in select- 

 ing his formulae and tables. Several of the tables 

 are antiquated, if not actually obsolete, and some 

 of the information might well be given in an 

 elementary text-book of arithmetic. 



The author begins by giving the latest formulas 

 for calculating the capacity and inductance of 

 various geometrical-shaped objects with high 

 accuracy. Judging- from this and other books 

 on the subject, one would infer that radio- 

 telegraphists spent most of their time in making 

 calculations by the laborious formulae so familiar 

 to readers of the mathematical bulletins of the 

 Bureau of Standards. Yet it is of importance to 

 be able to calculate the capacity between spherical 

 conductors or between parallel wires, and so we 

 wonder why no formulae are given for them in 

 this book. 



W^e find a table of haversines, but, as the haver- 

 sine is not defined and we have forgotten what it 

 means, it is no great help. We are given tables 

 of all kinds of wire gauges — the Birmingham, 

 the Brown and Sharpe, Stubs 's steel wire, 

 Whitworth's, piano-wire g-aug-e, etc. For prac- 

 tical purposes these gauges are obsolete. Elec- 

 tricians and cable-makers nowadays talk about 

 a 00 1 00 wire — i.e. a wire the diameter of which 

 is the hundredth of an inch. They do not talk 

 about a No. 33 wire S.W.G. It is astonishing 

 how long- the gauge system, which was hopelessly 

 unscientific, lasted in this country. We hope that 

 when the cable-makers' new standards are pub- 

 lished next summer the wire gauges will soon be 

 forgotten. 



