BOOK REVIEWS 341 



and the Plant as a Source of Energy, added to the chapters up- 

 on the usual headings, suggest a point of view that is interesting. 

 It is shown that practical considerations in the needs of socie- 

 ty have made science possible, but that science, outrunning the 

 causes that produced science, has gone into intellectual problems 

 which, for the time at least, bear no immediate relation to the 

 needs of society. But science does not prosper when she keeps 

 long away from the needs of society. Thus botany, originating 

 in practical needs, has from time to time busied itself with ab- 

 stract mattfrs, and then has been called back by considerations of 

 a practical kind. 



Even though a work on plant physiology, this book first con- 

 siders plant structure as a background for studies of functions, 

 and throughout, structure is constantly presented as an essential 

 to physiological studies. Experiment, verification, and discus- 

 sion that is often philosophic, characterize the method of the book. 

 The mechanical interpretation of plants and animals is con- 

 stantly urged. Little that is new appears, but the method of 

 presentation is interesting and stimulating. — O. \V. C. 



When the Forests Are Ablaze, Katherine B. Judson. 380 

 pages. A. C. McClurg & Co.. Chicago. $1.25. 



"Uncle Tom's Cabin," Alcott's "Little Men and Little 

 Women," Dicken's "David Copperfield," and novels of this sort, 

 have been books of definite purposes looking toward the 

 amelioration of social and economic conditions. It has almost 

 come to be a trite saying that the author who would reach the 

 masses and influence their opinions must put his message into a 

 novel. The government has been issuing pamphlets on conserva- 

 tion of our forests ; scientific papers have piled up statistics in a 

 mass of overwhelming evidence, and yet, the negligence and care- 

 lessness and well-nigh wanton destruction still goes on. Here is 

 wishing that this book may strike the popular fancy well enough 

 to carry conviction to the everyday man and woman, as the other 

 novels mentioned have done, for the problem of our forests is a 

 live issue and one that intimately affects all of us. 



The author has given us an exceedingly good love story. The 

 setting is in the Western forests. The climax of the tale comes 

 at the time of a forest fire. The heroine is an ex-schoolma'am. 

 and the hero a government forester. The descriptions of the 

 forest and of the fire are very good word pictures, and the entire 

 atmosphere of the book is permeated with the aroma of big firs 

 and the fragrant salal bushes. 



