BOOK REVIEWS 233 



Stories of Woods and Fields, Elizabeth N. Brown. ig2 pages. 

 World Book Co., New York. $ .40. 



This is one of a series of text books on nature for use in the lower 

 grades. It is a very attractive little volume of oiie hundred ninety- 

 two pages, with sixteen beautiful color pages, many other illustra- 

 tions and excellent print. The book contains sixty-nine short 

 stories and poems of plants, insects, spiders, reptiles, birds, amphi- 

 bians, mammals and a few history and holiday stories. The 

 stories are well written in such a way that children may give free 

 easy expression to their readings. While the book deals truthfully 

 with nature-study subjects with which children are somewhat 

 familiar it appeals to the child's interest and curiosity so that later 

 he will search for those things, in the real book of Nature — the 

 out-of-doors. B. B. K. 



Plants, Their Uses, Frederick L. Sargent. P. X -j- 610. Henry 

 Holt & Co. Price $1.25. 



This book is an attempt at cataloging; a large number of facts 

 about useful plants and passing them out as economic Botany. 

 The treatment of the subject is based almost entirely on the princi- 

 ples of systematic Botany. The economic phase, so far as it may 

 be called such, consists of a list of illustrations, descriptions, and 

 uses of most of the plants that are beneficial or harmful to man. 

 A glance at the chapter titles will give one a fair idea of the contents. 

 Chapters I on nomenclature and XHI on relations of organic to 

 inorganic realms have little or no place in a high school text. The 

 other chapters are: H, Cereals; HI, Food Plants; IV, Flavoring 

 and Beverage Plants; V, Medicinal and Poisonous Plants; VI, 

 Industrial Plants; VII, Classification and Description; VIII, 

 Parts of a Seed; IX, Crowfoot Family; X, Various Plant Groups; 

 XI, Kinship and Adaptation; XII, Life Histories. 



The first half of the book is taken up by the first six chapters on 

 some phases of useful plants, the last half by classification and 

 evolutionary topics and life histories. This leaves out the more 

 important features of morphology, physiology and ecology. Three 

 pages are given to the study of Bacteria. The practical phases 

 such as plant breeding, cultivation, etc., have been entirely omitted. 



This is certainly one of the most radical of books offered as a 

 high school text today. It is one of those many books that are 

 valuable on the teacher's shelf, but an impossible text in the hands 

 of any ordinary class of high school pupils. In fact it is not a text 

 book but a compendium of facts and illustrations of plants, both 



