CURRENT LITERATURE. 
Field, Forest and Garden Botany.' 
Of all the books which Dr. Gray found time in his busy life to pre- 
pare, none has been so widely used in schools as the manual which 
included the common cultivated plants. Although the first edition 
appeared in 1868, at the time of his death he was only hoping to find 
time to revise it. Shortly after his death, provisional arrangements 
were made by Dr. Watson for its revision, which was begun by Pro- 
fessor Barnes. A change in his plans, and a growing conviction that 
he could not do the work satisfactorily under the limitations imposed, 
impelled him to ask after Dr. Watson’s death for release from the 
agreement. At that time a preliminary list of the species to be 
included had been made, and also the first draft of the manuscript 
through the Leguminose. The corporation of Harvard College then 
placed the prosecution of the work in the most competent hands of 
Professor Bailey, to whom therefore belongs the credit for the whole 
revision. 
The book appeared early in the present year. It is really much 
more than a revision, since it now includes eighty-two genera and 553 
Species more than the original. This increase is partly due to exten- 
sion of territory west to the rooth meridian and more largely to the 
great increase in the number of plants now in common cultivation. 
n plan, arrangement, and Style of description, as well as nomencla- 
ture, the book is still Dr. Gray’s; the reviser’s aim being to bring it 
down to date. The only noteworthy innovation is the placing of the 
Symnosperms after the angiosperms, instead of between the dicotyle- 
dons and monocotyledons, a change to which Dr. Watson’s reluctant 
consent was obtained. 
The most difficult part of the work of revision naturally is to de- 
termine what to leave out. Prof. Bailey has been happy in the omis- 
sions he has made as well as in the choice of species to be included. 
In fact throughout the revision his wide knowledge of cultivated and 
wild plants is apparent. 
If any criticism is to be made upon the book it is that Prof. Bailey 
has not revised it enough. Dr. Gray always considered it the most 
* Gray, Asa:—Field, forest, and garden botany, a simole introduction to the 
common plants of the United States east of the rooth meridian, both wild aad 
cultivated; revised and extended by L. H. Bailey. 8vo. pp. $19. Ameri 
Co. 1895. 
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