1897 | CURRENT LITERATURE 383 
wholly erroneous and indefensible. Curiously enough, the same sentence 
which defines the author’s use of the term includes a statement of assimila- 
tion in the really proper sense: use of the food “by the protoplasm in mak- 
ing new parts and in repairing waste.” One cannot but wonder how long a 
time must elapse before the three independent processes in plants —the 
chlorophyllous production of food, digestion, and assimilation — will be gen- 
erally apprehended to an extent that will insure their correct presentation in 
works that purport to be botanically accurate. 
To offset the misusage just referred to, although making it the more 
inexplicable, one can heartily commend the careful employment of the terms 
fecundation and pollination, in place of the much-abused term, fertilization, 
which is often made to do service for both processes without distinction. In 
general the book is to be praised on account of the careful balance preserved 
between the various divisions of the subject, for the logical method of pre- 
sentation throughout, and for the serviceable illustrations, two-thirds of which 
are ae 
€ regret must be felt that the work has been arranged for such an 
Caiesiee grade of instruction. Yet having performed the more difficult 
task of writing an acceptable work for beginners, it is to be hoped that the 
author will follow it with a general treatise suitable for more advanced stu- 
dents.—J. C. A. 
Plant diseases. 
Another general work is now available to the student of plant diseases. 
An English edition of Dr. von Tubeuf’s book, issued in Germany in 1895, 
which treats of those diseases of plants induced by cryptogamic parasites, 
been prepared by his former pupil, Dr. Wm. G. Smith‘ of Edinburgh. 
The English edition is printed on extra thick paper, which makes the work 
uncomfortably heavy, considering the amount of matter it contains, but has 
the one merit of displaying to good advantage the numerous half tone 
engravings from the author’s excellent photographs. The work is well 
printed. The translation is in general acceptable, although one must take 
€xception to the indefensible and unscientific use of the word “fungoid” f 
fungous, an error that can only be forgiven in unlearned writers. 
_ One hundred pages of the work are given over to the nature and effects 
_ of parasitism, with some account of the extent of parasitic diseases and means 
for combating them. The remaining five-sixths of the work are devoted to a 
Systematic account of the fungi, bacteria, myxomycetes, med as that cause 
as Dr. Kart FREIHERR VON.—Diseases of plants in 
ee alge, Sisk eiditicns by William G. Smith. Longmans, Green & Co., London, — 
: — York: and Bombay, 1897. 8vo. pp. 598. 330 illustrations. $5.50. : 
