65 



these kinds. As a botanist however his interests were frankly 

 taxonomic. He liked plants as such and liked to study their 

 relationships. Living as he for the most part did away from 

 the great botanical centers with their libraries and herbaria his 

 activities naturally took the form of field work and of collect- 

 ing rather than the writing of extended monographs. He 

 loved the open, and the collection and preparation of specimens." 

 He was always collecting in large sets which he distributed 

 widely and in this way probably did more than any other man 

 of his generation to make the plants of the Southern States 

 available for study in all of the more important American and 

 European herbaria. His interest in forage plants led him to 

 specialize in the grasses. He was also a student of the para- 

 sitic fungi, particularly of- the rusts and the smuts, the two 

 groups most likely to be found on grasses. His botanical 

 papers largely deal with these two groups in both of which he 

 discovered and described a number of new species. As with 

 the flowering plants however his collections and field studies 

 of the fungi were much more extensive than his publications 

 regarding them. Excepting for his early years in Missouri 

 botany was Tracy's recreation rather than his chief work. 

 During the long period of his activity however there were few 

 who contributed more than he to the real knowledge of Ameri- 

 can plants. 



F. S. Earle. 



REVIEW^S 



Martin's Botany with Agrricultural Applications'^ 



The suggestion of the technical implied by the original title 

 of this volume (Botany for Agricultural Students) has led the 

 publishers to issue the second edition under a new name, one 

 that conveys somewhat more accurately the real nature of the 

 book. While primarily designed as a text for agricultural 

 students, the underlying principle of the book is one that is 

 rapidly coming to the fore at the present day. viz., that, regard - 



* Martin. J. X.. Botany with Agricultural Applications, xii -(- 604 pages, 

 490 figures, John Wiley & Sons. New York, 1920, $3.00. 



