264 The Botanical Gazette. [August 
Minor Notices. 
BULLETIN 38 of the Cornell Experiment Station? is devoted to an 
account of the cultivated native plums and cherries, by Prof. L. H. 
Bailey. The thorough treatment of the subject and the admirable il- 
lustrations keep this bulletin fully up to the rank of its predecessors. 
Ninety-five varieties are referred to their botanical sources, while forty- 
four remain still uncertain to the author, being known only from lit- 
erature or the descriptions of correspondents. From this paper it ap- 
pears that we have the following native species in cultivation: Prunus 
Americana Marsh., with 45 varieties; P. hortudana Bailey and its vat. 
Mineri, with 27; P. angustifolia Marsh. (P. Chicasa Mx.), with 18; and 
P. maritima Wang. with 1. The value of P. subcordata, the wild plum 
of the Pacific coast is yet to be determined. The cherries are treated 
ina similar manner, but more briefly, since few of the natives have 
been extensively cultivated. There is an attempt to unravel the tan- 
gle regarding Prunus pumila of Linnzeus and its eastern and western 
forms, which Prof. Bailey thinks distinct. 
TEACHERS in both country and city schools (and in many colleges 
too) will find the “Elementary Botanical Exercises” recently issued by 
pages: 
“Botany is not a 600k; much more is it not a Little book.” “Botany 
is the study of plants, not the study of books. It is making the per 
sonal acquaintance of the structure, reproduction, habits, uses and me 
lationships of plants; not a study about plants. When the inquisitive 
boy digs up his mother’s flower seeds in order to see how they grow 
that is botany in the scientific sense; but when he memorizes a chap- 
ter on ‘germination’ in a text-book, that is not botany at all.” : 
PRor. Moses Craic, the botanist of the Oregon Experiment ey 
tion, has prepared a bulletin on “Some Oregon weeds and how to 
waoy them.” There are brief descriptions of about thirty weeds a 
companied by wretched illustrations, with directions for << 
each that any body of sense would know. Beyond compliance vee! 
the absurd law which requires stations to issue a certain number 
bulletins each year, we fail to see the value of such publication. __ 
? pp. 73. 8vo. June 1892. 
* Published be H, Miller, Lincoln, Neb., 1892, 12mo. pp. 50. 35 0em' 
