CURRENT LITERATURE. 
BOOK REVIEWS. 
The pruning-book.* 
Tuts book, the latest of the ‘“Gardencraft Series,” like all of Professor 
Bailey’s works, deals with the subject in hand from a scientific standpoint, is 
systematic in arrangement, and so practical in all its suggestions that the 
average fruit-grower cannot fail to derive much valuable information from a 
perusal of its pages. 
The book is divided into two parts. Part I treats of the ‘“‘ Fundamen- 
tals,” and Part II the “ Incidentals.”’ 
In the first part the philosophy and principles of pruning are discussed at 
length, and in the arguments brought forth it is made very evident to the 
most casual observer that the author isa firm believer in the theory of evolu- 
tion as affecting plants, as wellas animals. Consequently many of the reasons 
advanced for certain statements are comparatively new to us, because no 
American writer has ever taken so advanced a position on this subject as 
Professor Bailey has done ; not so marked perhaps in this as in 7he Survival 
of the Unlike, which makes a good companion to the present volume. ; 
A very common opinion held by practical horticulturists of the present 
day is that pruning exhausts the vitality of plants to a greater or less degree, 
according to the severity of the operation. In discussing this question the 
author maintains that no injury is done to the plant when the pruning is prop 
erly performed, and in support of this statement he presents arguments from 
three sources, viz., philosophy, plant physiology, and common experience. 
A tree, he says, is essentially a collection or colony of individual parts. 
Every branch is endeavoring to do what every other branch does — bear 
leaves, flowers, and seeds. Every branch competes with every other branch, 
and there are more rudiments of branches — that is, more buds — than theré 
can be branches upon any tree. The limbs and organs of an animal are a 
competitors but copartners, each performing some function or office which 
another does not, and they all obtain at maturity a definite size and shapé- 
But a branch never obtains its full size until it ceases to grow and thereby 
begins to die. Branches are competing individuals ; hence there is a struggle 
‘BAILEY, L. H.: The pruning-book. A monograph of the pruning and training 
of plants as applied to American conditions, 12mo., pp. xii+537. New York: The 
Macmillan Co. $1.50. 
