August i, 1907] 



NA TURE 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 

 The Etftcicnt Life. By Dr. Luther H. Gulick. Pp. xvi 



+ 195; illustrated. (London : W. Heinemann, 1907.) 



Price 3.V. 6d. net. | 



The " Efficient Life " is a useful addition to our 

 stock of knowledge of how to maintain health and 

 viofour under the conditions of the present-day manner 

 of livinij. Man has become in civilised countries 

 mostlv a dweller in cities during the past fifty years, 

 and even the small portion of human beings who follow 

 a country life is tinged by the customs and ways of 

 the citv. ' 



Dr. Gulick applies himself to telling us how to 

 counteract the deteriorating effects of (town) life, and 

 he has executed his task well. It is an artificial life 

 we lead, and the means of ameliorating its evils must 

 necessarily be by artificial devices. Following the 

 chase and tilling the soil were the natural avocations 

 of man, but these natural means of physical develop- 

 ment cannot be followed by the majority nowadays, 

 and we have to be content with bodily exercises, 

 breathing exercises, games, and such substitutes as 

 we can devise to make up for nature's plan. That 

 we are to succeed is another question, but if we are 

 it is bv following the ideals and methods Dr. Gulick 

 has set before us. In " The Efficient Life " the author 

 deals with almost every phase of our daily round of 

 life. Food, drink, fatigue, sleep, exercise, baths, and 

 general physiological states are dealt with in an at- 

 tractive and masterly style which everyone can under- 

 stand and no one can studv without benefit. 



Although by neither proverbial quotations nor by 

 lectures can we gain health, yet, by dint of persist- 

 ence in teaching the public by means of these, great 

 good mav come; and in time the thoughts they give 

 rise to come to be. imperceptibly perhaps, part and 

 parcel of our daily life. In this way a better percep- 

 tion of how to counteract the deteriorating effects of 

 the modern manners of living may be attained, and 

 with such efficient guides before us as the one given 

 by Dr. ("rulick, the end m;iv be hoped to be attained, 

 gradually, perhaps, yet none the less surely. 



Flowers of the Field. By the Rev. C. A. Johns. Re, 

 vised and edited by C. Elliott. Pp. xx + 3i6. 

 (London: G. Routl'edge and Sons, Ltd., 1907.) 

 Price 75. 6d. net. 

 Judging bv the useful purpose it has served in the past, 

 Johns's " Flowers of the Field " may almost be re- 

 garded as a " classic," and now it shares with the 

 classics the fate of being produced in two versions. 

 The opinion is often expressed that the editions bear- 

 ing a date antecedent to 1899 were excellently adapted 

 to the use of amateur collectors of flowers, but the 

 publishers, considering it advisable to bring the book 

 up to date, remodelled it at the same time. In the 

 version now before us, Mr. Elliott claims that the old 

 form is maintained except for revision, the augment- 

 ation of descriptions and the addition of new coloured 

 plates. It is evident that the text has been subjected 

 to considerable revision, especially in the matter of re- 

 arranging the species of some of the larger genera, but 

 there are other places where emendations were re- 

 quired, such as assigning Paris to the Trilliacese and 

 .\corus to the Orontiaceae, retaining the genera 

 .Apargia and Fedia, and the binomial Lactnca alpina. 

 Where the present edition differs from, and falls short 

 of the original work is in the size and number of the 

 cuts, and the elimination of guiding headlines under 

 the large genera. The coloured plates are good repro- 

 ductions, but in many instances the drawings are 

 scrappy and attenuated. .\n apparently unimportant 

 and yet important change is the increase in size and 



NO. 1970, VOL. 76] 



bulk of the volume. While recognising that Mr. Elliott 

 has made changes for the better in the text, mistakes 

 such as "aureole," " Hiberna," "paralias," are not 

 infrequent. It is probable that the botanist who pos- 

 sesses an old edition of the book will be satisfied with 

 his antique. 



Cyclopedia of American Agriculture. Edited by L. H. 

 Bailey. In four volumes. Vol. I. : Farms. Pp. 

 6i.Sj-'xviii. (New York: The Macmillan Company; 

 London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1907.) Price 

 2 IS. net. 



Cyclopedias seem to be coming into fashion again ; 

 Morton's " Cyclopedia of Agriculture " was one of 

 the best books dealing with the old high farming of 

 the middle of the last century, but it has found no 

 successor, though we understand one is under pre- 

 paration at the present time, and now we receive the 

 first instalment of a monumental work from America. 

 The book opens with a description of the various dis- 

 tricts into which the continent may be divided, the 

 cotton .Slates, the corn-belt .States, the arid States, 

 itc. , each section being contributed by a writer spe- 

 cially acquainted with the locality in question. Then 

 follows an exceedingly interesting and valuable chapter 

 on planning, stocking, and equipment of various types 

 of farm, with a discussion of the capital required in 

 each case. Other sections of this chapter deal with 

 water supply, farm buildings, and machinery, this 

 latter an article that would be of service to the English 

 farmer. Further chapters treat of soils and fertilisers, 

 and are of a more ordinary text-book type, as again is 

 the last chapter dealing with the atmosphere. This, 

 indeed, is too much a general essay on meteorology, 

 and not at all of a character to draw the farmer to a 

 more intelligent personal study of the weather and 

 the torecasting which is within his own power. 



The book is profusely illustrated with wood-cuts and 

 process blocks, but while many of the photographs 

 are of interest and are necessary to develop the text, 

 a great many seem to have been inserted on the 

 general encyclopedia principle of stick a picture in 

 wherever you can, however diagrammatic and 

 irrelevant it may be. Indeed, we are at times 

 reminded of the delicious illustrations to " Wisdom 

 while you wait." While we cannot recommend this 

 cyclopedia to the English farmer, so different is the 

 agriculture of the two countries, it should find its 

 place on the shelves of the teacher, who can obtain 

 from it a good many hints and suggestions for appli- 

 cation on this side. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 

 [The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions 

 expressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake 

 to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected 

 manuscripts intended for this or any other part of Nature. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications.] 



Root Action and Bacteria. 



The experiments mentioned by Mr. F. Fletcher in 

 Nature of July 18 (p. 270) bear only on the functioning 

 of roots once they have come into activity, not on their 

 passage from the dormant to the active condition. 



The probable analogy between the bursting of a dormant 

 root-bud and the germination of a seed has led me to 

 invcstigatr; the latter, and some of the results already 

 obtained tally exactly with those obtained with tre'?s. 

 Seeds of Lolium perenne, sterilised by carbon disulphide, 

 were planted in soil or sand which had been previously 

 treated in various ways ; the water-contents of the medium 

 were the same in every case, and re-inoculation from the 

 air was prevented. All the experiments were made in 



