in the cotton gin has been made since it was intro- 
duced ’’—more than 100 years ago—and an authority 
is quoted as saying that ‘‘ the saw gin actually wastes 
or destroys over 6 per cent. of all the cotton raised in 
the Southern States, meaning the destruction each year 
of nearly 40,000,000 dollars worth of property belong- 
ing to the farmers of the South.’’ By other quoted 
authorities it is stated that ‘‘ the saw gin destroys 
over 40 per cent. of the initial strength of the cotton 
fibre.’? It is also pointed out that, besides this waste, 
cotton can only be pressed to 14 lb. per cubic foot at 
the ginneries. 
‘““A fortune,’? say the authors, ‘‘ awaits the man 
who will invent a compress requiring small horse- 
power, so that the bales, with one handling at the 
gin, may be compressed tightly enough for export 
purposes; just as a fortune awaits the man who will 
invent a roller gin for upland cotton by which the 
present waste and the barbarous laceration of the fibre 
may be obviated.”’ 
Such a statement is strong testimony of the authors’ 
lack of knowledge of cotton affairs. Do they not 
know that there is a press in their own country which 
can be affixed to a gin and turn out a bale compressed 
to 35 lb. per cubic foot, and that it only takes 5 h.p. 
to drive it? Do they not know that in England gins 
are built which neither cut the cotton nor weaken 
the fibre, whether used on the long staple of Egypt or 
the short staple of India? Do they not know that 
American trusts are trying to defeat one of these 
longed-for improvements, and American tariffs pro- 
hibit the other ? 
The remarks about baling are specially interesting 
as coming from friends of the farmer. After observ- 
ing that “like the gin, the baling press has been 
materially improved in rapidity and in efficiency ”’ 
{they told us on a previous page that no noteworthy 
improvement to the gin had been made since it was 
introduced, and that the old horse-driven gin did 
better work than the modern steam-power gin), they 
remark that ‘‘as a rule, the American bale is not 
prepared with such care as its importance demands,”’ 
that the covering is torn, allowing the lint to drop 
out, that on bringing it back from the gin the farmer 
puts it under the apple tree or in the barn lot, or in 
some open, exposed place, ‘‘ where rain and dust 
attack and damage it, and even pigs are allowed 
access to it on which to clean their muddy backs.”’ 
After making such a charge against the business 
capacities of the cotton farmer, is it not stretching 
a point to ask us to believe that these people who 
so mismanage their own business can by combination 
regulate the buying and selling of cotton on better 
or more economical lines than on the old law of 
supply and demand ? 
“Cotton ’’ is very well printed, its illustrations are 
excellent, but from its numerous examples of bad 
English, the rhetorical extravagances indulged in by 
the authors, and the narrow views they take of 
political economy as affecting nation and nation, we 
are afraid their chances of being accepted as authori- 
tative contributors to human knowledge are greatly 
jeopardised. 
NO. 1932, VOL. 75] 
NATURE 
| NovEMBER 8, 1906 
BOTANICAL DICTIONARIES. 
(1) Illustriertes Handwérterbuch der Botanik. By 
Several Authors, and with the collaboration of Dr. 
O. Porsch and C. K. Schneider. Pp. vii+690; with 
341 figures. (Leipzig: Engelmann, 1905.) Price 
16s. net. 
(2) Dizionario di Botanica Generali. By "Dg 
Guglielmo Bilancioni. Manuali Hoepli. Pp. xx+ 
926. (Milan: U. Hoepli, 1906.) Price Lio. 
(t) JT would be an interesting question to discuss in 
its technical connections what are the differ- 
ences between a glossary, a dictionary, and an encyclo- 
paedia of botany, but space will not allow of that, and 
we may pass on to say that this heavy book, typically 
German and written by Germans for Germans, stands 
in sharp contrast, with its unequal paragraphs—for 
instance, more than two pages and a half are devoted 
to Driisen, none to Zelle, and only half a page to 
Zell-keyn—to the light and neat English ‘‘ Glossary 
of Botanic Terms’? of our own countryman, Mr. 
Daydon Jackson. 
The authors admit that the book has been designed 
to exclude antiquated terms on the one hand, and the 
most modern terms of the English-American and 
French literature on the other; they anticipate the 
question, ‘‘ How are we to draw the line? ’’ and have 
decided that all purely descriptive expressions shall be 
excluded. But what are we to say to a ‘* Hand- 
worterbuch ’’ from which all terms belonging to bio- 
chemistry and micro-technique, &c., except a few 
arbitrarily selected general terms, such as “ swell- 
ing,’’ ‘‘ fermentation,’ ‘‘ catalysis,’’? ‘‘ turgescence,”’ 
&c., are excluded ? 
That the book contains enormous amount of 
carefully collected information is sufficiently guaran- 
teed by the names of the collaborators, but it is not 
a dictionary in the true sense of the word, and it is 
a very incomplete encyclopedia. The illustrations are 
good, but the majority of them are old and well-worn 
friends transferred bodily from the text-books of 
Sachs, De Bary, Franck, and others. To the ordinary 
student in this country the book can have little value ; 
to the expert and experienced investigator it will have 
sufficient attractions for him to place it on his shelves. 
Of course, the position it may be accorded in Germany, 
for the German student, is another matter with which 
we have nothing to do. 
(2) Here we have a neatly-got-up book far more 
in accordance with the idea of a dictionary, though 
even here some of the paragraphs are too long and 
drawn out in the form of encyclopzedic articles. 
The preface begins “‘ Vi fu chi affernio che il pit 
interressante di tutti i libri é€ un dizionario.’’ This 
may be so, in spite of the story—apparently unknown 
to the author—of the Scotchman who was found 
steadily perusing a dictionary from cover to cover 
with the sole complaint that the matter of the story 
seemed somewhat disconnected. A useful feature of 
the book is an appendix of biographical sketches of 
botanists, living and dead; this is necessarily very 
short and incomplete. There are no illustrations. 
” 
an 
