BOOK REVIEWS 73 



Agricultural Club, Weeds, Insects, Birds, Plant Diseases, Trees, 

 Sweet Pea, Cow, Com, Weather, Potatoes, Poultry, Cotton, Sugar 

 Beets, Public Health, and The Mosquito and House Fly. The 

 author has included in his work some excellent lessons in civics, 

 sanitation, landscape gardening, rural economy and other sub- 

 jects not usually discussed in. a text book on agriculture for grade 

 pupils. The following experiments will serve to illustrate the 

 above statement: "Touch the fingers to gelatin medium in a 

 petri dish" (after having performed exercises in the preparation 

 of the medium and methods of obtaining bacteria cultures) 

 "cover and set aside; wash the fingers and touch another gelatine 

 preparation." "Prepare two flat-sided bottles with gelatine 

 culture medium. Catch a house fly and let it walk over the 

 culture medium in one of them. Observe results each day." 

 Better lessons in sanitation than the above are seldom met with. 

 Lessons of this type are full of life and meaning to the child as 

 well as of great practical value. These are most welcome innova- 

 tions in the subject of agriculture. We regret that the author 

 neglects to speak of the horse a discussion of which would have 

 been of equal, if not of greater value than the treatment of the 

 sweet pea to which he devotes nine pages. Scientists may object 

 to such questions as, "Why does the female mosquito lay hundreds 

 of eggs and the hen so few?" on the ground that it will tend to 

 teleological reasoning by the pupil but we believe that insistence 

 on the part of scientists that only exact facts be presented to grade 

 pupils is not only unreasonable but not conducive to the best 

 interests of education. 



The book will be suggestive to the wide-awake teacher of 

 many topics and exercises purely local and which therefore could 

 not be included in the book. It contains many fine tables, out- 

 lines, and score cards and is well illustrated with one hundred and 

 ninety-nine figures. — V. Lantis. 



Plant Life and Plant Uses, John Gaylord Coulter, pp. xvi+464, 

 The American Book Co., $1.20. 



Elementary Studies in Botany, John M. Coulter, pp. ix-t-461, 

 D. Appleton, $1.30. 



Introduction to Biology, Maurice A. and Anna M. Bigelow, pp. 

 ix-{-424. The MacMillan Co., $1.10. 



