254 
NATORE 
| JULY 30, 1914 
artificials which were offered to him. However, | leges at present; undoubtedly the students do 
the supply of stable manure tends to decrease, and 
twenty years have seen very considerable dis- 
placement of horse traffic by motor traffic and 
electric tramways so that, instead of being able 
to bring out large quantities of stable manure 
from the cities at a very low price or even for 
no‘hing, the market gardener has been compelled 
to buy at prices which show an uncomfortable 
tendency to rise. Indeed, the authors go so far 
as to predict that at no distant time town stable 
manure will be for many of its long-accustomed 
users an unattainable luxury. 
The authors, therefore, laid out a series of ex- 
periments to see what would be the effect of arti- 
ficial manures on market garden crops, and 
whether the same sort of results would be obtained 
as on ordinary agricultural crops. The results 
were as might have been expected; the artificials 
exerted their full effect and gave crops as large 
as those obtained in the ordinary way, sometimes 
even larger. A certain foundation of organic 
manure is necessary in order to give satisfactory 
tilth to the soil and to increase its water-holding 
capacity. But this does not necessitate the large 
quantities which had formerly been used, and the 
authors make some useful suggestions as to the 
way in which stable manure may be supplemented 
by artificials so that considerably increased crops 
may be obtained. 
(2) Mr. Alan Murray is well known as a careful 
and painstaking teacher who takes a good deal of 
trouble over the preparation of his lectures and 
of his books. 
In the volume before us he gives a very in- 
teresting account of the chemistry of cattle feeding 
and dairying drawn up for the students at agri- 
cultural colleges and elsewhere. It is divided 
into four parts. The first deals with the chemistry 
of plants and animal constituents and includes 
chapters on the carbohydrates, the fats, proteins, 
etc.; the second deals with the physiology of 
nutrition and milk production; the third with the 
properties of feeding stuffs, and the fourth with 
dairying. It is obviously a good deal to expect 
of one man that he should cover so wide a range 
of subjects, and we hope the time is not far dis- 
tant when teachers of agricultural chemistry will 
not be under the necessity of giving preliminary 
courses of advanced organic chemistry and ele- 
mentary physiology. 
We think, perhaps, Mr. Murray would have 
done wisely to have made more use of the series 
of bio-chemical monographs edited by Plimmer 
and Hopkins, instead of the less recent books 
that he quotes. Probably some such method would 
be a simple way out of the difficulty at the col- | 
NO? 2325, VOLE os] 
need these preliniinary courses in organic chem- 
istry and physiology, but it is unreasonable that 
the agricultural chemist should be required to give 
them. 
Passing on to the more strictly technical side, 
the descriptions of the feeding stuffs and methods 
of compounding rations are very well done, and 
a graphic method is given for working out some 
of the practical problems which will greatly 
facilitate the work of teacher and _ student. 
There is also an interesting chart showing the 
composition of the foods. Altogether the book 
is one that cannot fail to be useful. 
(3) This book is frankly technical and written 
for the American grower. It, therefore, natur- 
ally appeals much less to the English reader than 
to those in the States. The general reader, how- 
ever, will find an interesting account of the culti- 
vation of certain crops. Beans play a large part 
in American dietaries, and large areas are given 
up to their cultivation in certain sections of the 
States, particularly in New York and Michigan. 
Indeed, in some parts beans have become as 
much a staple crop as wheat was a quarter of a 
century ago, and have largely displaced it. 
The growth of sweet corn is also dealt with at 
length, the methods of cultivation, of harvesting, 
and the varieties being fully described. At present 
80 per cent. of the seed corn is grown in Nebraska, 
but large amounts are raised in the other States 
for the canning industry, the requirements of 
which are enormous. 
The ordinary potato is described as the Irish 
potato in contradistinction to a wholly different 
crop, the sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas); it re- 
ceived this name from the fact that it is one ot 
the standard foods of the Irish people. ‘“‘ Because 
of its enormous yields,” the author states, “and 
its easy cultivation, it has grown to be an im- 
portant economic factor in the maintenance of the 
dense population of that country.” Potatoes as 
a farm crop bulk largely in the north-eastern sec- 
tion of the States, where the method of growth 
is not unlike ours and the same sort of troubles 
seem to arise. There is one pest, however, from 
which we have fortunately been free: the Colorado 
potato beetle, described as being the most serious 
insect enemy of the potato. 
Each crop is carefully described, and there are 
maps showing their distribution in the States. 
Altogether, it is a book that the American grower 
is not likely to be able to dispense with, and so 
far as one can judge, the information seems to 
be very sound; it is certainly well put together 
and illustrated with plenty of good photographs. 
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