1900 | CURRENT LITERATURE 283 
rather than difficulty.” For more than ten years Professor Bailey has been 
moving in the direction of this cyclopedia, much of his published work in the 
meantime being ‘‘ material on the way”’ to the larger venture. The “ Annals 
of Horticulture,” published for five years, was the first tangible result, 
“designed to be a witness of passing events and a record of progress.” 
To compile a cyclopedia by using other cyclopedias involves drudgery, 
but presents no special difficulties, and results in no special merits. In 
Bailey’s Cyclopedia, however, the work is new from start to finish, both in text 
and illustrations, and the list of collaborators shows that the most expert 
assistance has been obtained. 
The illustrations, too, deserve special mention for the happy combina- 
tion of scientific and artistic excellence, and it has been one of the rules of 
the “make up” that “ wherever the book opens an engraving will be seen,” 
Besides, the book is distinctly American in its flavor, fully setting forth 
American experience and conditions. 
The matter may be arranged under three heads: cultural, taxonomic, 
and morphological, and the sequence seems to express their relative impor- 
tance, as “the stress is laid upon the plants as domesticated and cultivated 
subjects.” 
In reference to the cultural parts the reviewer can express no opinion, 
but botanists are familiar with Professor Bailey’s standard in such matters, 
and need no assurance as to the freshness and vigor of this portion of the 
work, 
The following example, under the title Acacza, will serve to illustrate 
the taxonomic portion of the work. The genus is described briefly, in lan- 
guage as non-technical as possible, and a synopsis of fifty-three species is 
given, including all those in the American trade. The synopsis consists of 
an analytical key, brief descriptions, and essential synonymy, just as in an 
ordinary manual, so that the Cyclopedia becomes a great manual for all plants 
In cultivation in America. 
The morphological titles, such as “ flower,” etc., are to appear chiefly in 
Subsequent volumes, and comment on this topic will be deferred. : 
To the botanist the Cyclopedia is a mass of most valuable information, 
bringing together, as it does, into available and properly edited form, the 
immense contribution of facts from horticulturists to the whole evolutionary 
doctrine, and enabling the morphologist to know what form he is handling 
t 
turists.—J. M. C 
Minnesota plant life. 
For the second time botanists have had the pleasu 
has for its topic the vegetation of one of our states. 
re of seeing a book that 
Pound and Clements’ 
~ 
