SuURRENT. LITERATURE, 
BOOK REVIEWS: 
A practical garden book. 
THE LATEST of the Garden Craft Series is a compact little book of 250 
pages for amateur gardeners,’ in which the subjects are arranged in cyclo- 
pedic fashion. This alphabetic arrangement is supposed to make unnecessary 
both table of contents and index, but the latter would have been useful for 
cross references. 
The range of subjects treated is wide, as may be seen by the foilowing, 
taken at random from “C”: Cucumbers, Currants, Cuttings, Cutworms. A 
section from “F” reads as follows: Ferns, Fertilizers, Feverfew, Fig, Flower- 
ds 
The aim has been to afford information on simple garden operations in 
the simplest possible form. The effort, so far as it has been carried out, has 
been fairly successful, and as a rule little fault can be found with the quality 
of the advice given, although under “ Dahlia” the direction given to “place 
the roots in gentle heat ” might easily lead the amateur into difficulties unless 
he is familiar with technical terms. 
The information is mainly of local application, being adapted to central and 
northern latitudes. The book may prove of some value as a reference book 
Garden making, an earlier book of this series, is greatly superior, as It 
Covers a wider field and treats in plain language the principles of the art o 
Something absolutely essential for the beginner. It is extremely 
doubtful if a beginner, in consulting the present volume, would look up soils, 
Cultivation, fertilizers, etc., before sowing his seeds, As a companion, possibly 
aS a complement to Garden making, it will be useful to those who can buy 
many books, but, tak 
Value, Indeed its publication leads one to suspect an effort to unload on the 
of En book simply for the purpose of gain ; an effort of publishers too 
often att 
~~ *. W. CRANEFIELD. 
‘is ‘Hunn, C. E., and Barry, L. H.: Amateurs practical garden book, cone 
oon directions for the growing of the commonest things about the house an 
$1.09, \P* Yi+250. Illustrated. New York: The Macmillan Company. 1900. 
1900] 
131 
