214 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [SEPTEMBER 
which one’s work is published is almost as important as the 
subject selected or the method adopted for its investigation. 
Alphonse de Candolle, in one of the most helpful treatises ever 
published in the hope of rendering botanical work methodical 
and productive,” lays a great deal of stress on the early selection 
of a form of publication for the results of each important study. 
This done, the work continually shapes itself to this end. Fre- 
quently there is much difficulty in securing the publication of a 
monograph or memoir in precisely the form and place desired 
by the author, but there is seldom an insuperable obstacle in the 
way of publishing any really meritorious work in about the man- 
ner wished, provided it is suitably prepared. . 
In general, it is desirable that works of a given class 
should be so published that in seeking one a reader 1s likely to 
learn of another. This appears less important for books that 
for shorter papers, since the arrangement of independently issued 
volumes in a library, and the fact that they are catalogued by 
authors, render it relatively easy to learn of and have access t0 
them; but even here one finds no little convenience . the 
recognition that a book by a given author on a given subject 5 
quite likely to be listed in the catalogue of a certain publishing ] 
house. Smaller papers, which are usually published in geen | 
ceedings of some society, or in a scientific journal, may almost ao 
said to be made or ruined by the place selected for their et . | 
tion. Probably as library facilities increase and are muah eo 
oughly classified and subject-indexed, this will become bi > 
than it now is, though the underlying reason for it will i a 
Usually a reader turns to the popular journals only wie mee : 
for popularized science, and is not likely to seek the orig inal ‘ fet 
of research there, so that such papers are nearly oF ee ‘ue ' 
long time if published in these journals. Except where ey 2 | . 
chiefly devoted to digests and abstracts, few nominally a : 
journals now exist which do not lean so strongly = a 
specialty that one unconsciously classes them with it, n° ae 
*La Phytographie, ou l’art décrire les végétaux considérés sous atents POP 
de vue. Paris, 1880. 
