1897] CURRENT LITERATURE 381 
not lay so much stress as many recent writers have done upon the claims for 
extensive pleomorphism and variability among bacteria, and seems not to be 
acquainted with some of the available data in this field. 
The index of the book is somewhat inadequate for a compilation of this 
character, and might be enlarged to advantage. The most serious typo- 
graphical error that we have noticed is the mistake in numbering and placing 
Plates IV and V, so that each plate is faced by the description of the other. 
But when all shortcomings are taken into consideration, it still remains true 
that Dr. Migula’s work is a distinct aid to all workers in bacteriology, and 
should give an impetus to the study of the purely scientific aspects of the 
subject.—E. O. J 
ey a 
MINOR NOTICES. 
THE PROCEEDINGS of the tenth annual convention of the Association of 
Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations has recently been issued in 
Bulletin no. 41 of the Office of Experiment Stations. They contain only 
: one botanical paper, a vigorous presentation of the place of vegetable physi- 
: ology in the curriculum of the agricultural colleges, by Professor Geo. E 
Stone, of Amherst, Mass. This article, while addressed to agricultural col- 
leges, is equally applicable to the conditions existing in most of the higher 
cational institutions in the United States, and deserves a wider reading 
‘than its form of publication is likely to bring. The author justly states that 
“there has been no branch of botany so neglected in our country as the phys- 
iology of plants.” A very general awakening, however, has been recently 
experienced. As a a pedagogical subject, nevertheless, it is still in a very 
unsettled condition, and it has been called upon to meet the damaging influ- 
ence of specialists in other lines of activity, who permit inertia and mistaken 
notions to influence their attitude toward the new aspirant for position. The 
following sentences, quoted from the article, are so well said, and so much in 
need of being said, that they are reproduced here, and it is to be regretted 
that room is not available for more. 
“The necessity of defining a branch like physiology is in itself a reflec- 
tion on our botanical development, especially when there are so many excel- 
lent text-books treating physiology in a distinctly characteristic manner. 
‘Nevertheless such misconsceptions exist, and I feel justified in calling atten- 
tion to them. There has never been any question as to what physiology 
atts among the animal physiologists ; neither has there been any among 
European vegetable physiologists. But right here in our American agricul- 
tural institutions we have had professors of botany who did not, and do not 
Se today, seem to know exactly what ground this subject covers. One institu- 
: tion that I have in mind has advertised for years a thorough and complete 
2 os for work in vegetable physiology, and yet this very same institu- 
