BOOK REVIEWS 79 



A Practical Course in Botany, With Especial Reference to 

 its Bearings on Agriculture, Economics, and Sanitation, by E. 

 F. Andrews, with editorial revision by Francis E. Lloyd, pp. 

 IX-|-374. American Book Co. $1.25. 



Those teachers who are acquainted with Andrews' Botany 

 All the Year Round will recognize in this new volume the older 

 book with considerable padding. To those of us who have used 

 the earlier text with good results it seems too bad to bring this 

 revision out under another name, especially since the added ma- 

 terial is rather inferior in quality. Some of the additional illus- 

 trations are very crude, and some at least of the added text is 

 quite inadequate. To undertake, for instance, to give practical 

 directions for hybridization and a discussion of Mendel's Law all 

 in four pages of text is so evidently impossible that the average 

 teacher would prefer to have the subjects omitted. Plant breed- 

 ing is given four pages, and the factors in the evolution of 

 species one-half page. 



One of the best features of this book, which was also found 

 in the Botany All the Year Round, is the practical questions that 

 follow the various chapters. The book is still an excellent 

 Botany, but it is that largely in spite of. rather than because of 

 the additions that have been made. The old-type Botany cannot 

 be transformed, in the reviewer's estimate, into the kind of 

 Botany that the modern demand calls practical, by simply adding 

 some material. The point of view must be changed, and a new 

 text written. 



Applied Biology, by ^L A. Bigelow and Anna X. Bigelow. 

 pp. XI4-5S3. The Macmillan Co., Xew York. $1.40. 



In the preface of this lx)ok the authors state: "In the most 

 liberal interpretation, 'applied biology' must present those facts 

 and ideas of the science which apply to human life in its combined 

 intellectual, aesthetic, economic, and hygienic outlook. - * * 

 In other words, it has been attempted to present the science of 

 biology applied to the daily life of the average intelligent citizen." 

 With this understanding of the term ''applied" no fault can be 

 found with the text. One rather expects, however, when he 

 picks up a book with the title so changed from the customary 

 title of a text-book in Biology, to find that the treatment is quite 

 altered. That is not the case with this book, however. It is 

 simply a systematic course in Botany, and Zoolog>-, with 100 pages 

 added on Human Physiolog}-. Then there is a brief chapter of 



