CURKENT EITERATURE, 
BOOK REVIEWS. 
Bacterial diseases. 
Tuts quarto volume on bacterial plant diseases, by Dr. ERwin F. SMITH,’ is 
a manual for plant pathologists, which, with the author’s characteristic care in 
clearly stating details, covers the subject, from the angle at which a tube should be 
held during inoculation to plans for the construction of a water still and sugges- 
tions as to the proper developer for photographic plates. One of the fundamenta 
reasons for the abundance of half-finished work on bacterial plant diseases which 
is annually imposed upon the public has been the lack in all literature of just such 
a sae? " ah areca =nitee which the author has scattered through the work 
uncertainty which now pervades the subject in the minds 
of many would be oan dissipated. 
The Carnegie Institution is surely treading on dangerous ground in publishing 
such a manual, but if such action can be justified at all, it can be in this case. 
Here the need is great and the subject is so specialized as to make such a publica- 
tion impossible except at a financial loss. So great was the need that a proper 
presentation of the material promised for the second volume could hardly be made 
without a considerable portion of the matter here given. 
The volume is divided into three parts; 186 pages being devoted to the text, 16 
to useful laboratory formule, and 63 to bibliography. The latter covers the gen- 
eral field of bacteriology, with the exception of plant diseases, this division being 
reserved for the second volume. The publication is well illustrated, many of the 
cuts showing the effect of bacteria upon plant tissue. The index covers the entire 
volume and will be especially useful in connection with the bibliography, which is 
arranged by subjects in the body of the volume. 
g the many original things in this suggestive work, the discussion of 
“keeping of records” and “nomenclature and classification” are of special interest. 
Any one who has attempted to keep an accurate history of the behavior of a plant 
parasite in the laboratory and in its host when the work has extended over a number 
‘of years, has felt the need of an improved system. The subject of bacterial classi- 
fication has been fairly quiescent for some years, and we have been busy trying to 
fit the forms as they are found into MicuLA’s somewhat artificial framework. 
The proposition of the author to replace MicuLa’s Pseudomonas by Bacterium 
and send the group represented by B. anthracis masquerading under the name 
of A planobacter will come to some as a discouragement 
1SMiTH, E. F., Bacteria in relation to plant diseases. Vol. I. 4to. pp- xii 
285. Washington: Carnegie Institution, 1905. 
214 
ap eee ne 
