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[THE BOOK SHELF 



Science of Plant Life. A High School Botany Treating of the Plant and Its 

 Relation to the Environment. By Edgar Nelson Transeau, Professor of 

 Botany, Ohio State University. In New World Science Series, edited by 

 John W. Ritchie. Cloth. Illustrated, ix + 336 pages. Price $1.48. 

 World Book Company, Yonkers-on- Hudson, New York. 

 Botany has found itself. For a number of years it has been groping its way 

 with unsteady tread. The student has followed botany with the same uncer- 

 tainty in his progress and has found himself experiencing a wonderment over 

 what it was all about when the course was finished. To be sure, he had 

 acquired an extensive vocabulary of strange and impressive-sounding terms 

 which he could use to the consternation of them initiate, especially after he 

 conducted them on a sightseeing tour of his herbarium of carefully mounted, 

 preserved and stiffened specimens of plant life most of which afford interest 

 because of their strangeness. 



Botany is no longer restricted to the study of the flower. It really is a basis 

 for, or introduction to, the arts and sciences relating to plant producing — even 

 plant distribution and plant consumption. Probably it is the study of agricul- 

 ture that has shown botany the way. However, that may be, it is obvious 

 that the purpose of botany must be more than cultural. On the other hand, 

 its cultural value will not be minimized by giving it a practical slant. And 

 botany that will serve as a basis for agriculture or any art or science relating 

 to plant production must be conceded to be a good botany and possessing all 

 the desirable cultural qualities. 



No one has better outlined the purpose of Transeau's Science of Plant Life, 

 the selection of material and its treatment, than the author, himself, in his 

 I)reface. 



Farm Science. A Foundation Textbook on ^Vgriculture. By W. J. Spillman, 



Chief of the Office of Farm Management, U. S. Department of Agriculture. 



(The first book in The New Work Agriculture Series, edited by the author) 



Published by World Book Company. Yonkers-on-Hudson, New York. 



Cloth. Illustrated, vii + 344 pages. Price, $1.28. 



Spillman's Farm Science presents scientific truth in a way that the farm bo^- 



can understand. It does not attempt to teach what any bright farm boy has 



already learned by experience. It does attempt to explain to him the r<"ri';ons 



for the facts the farm boy knows to be true. 



It deals with fundamental jirinciples, which are the same everywhere. This 

 makes the book adai)ted to all sections of th,^ country. 



The material is arranged for convenient use in the classroom, and a teacher 

 does not have to be an exjicrt in agricultural science in order to use the book 

 effectively. 



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