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REVIEWS 



Robbins's The Botany of Crop Plants* 



This book contains a mass of information concerning tropical 

 as well as temperate forms, and cannot help but prove invaluable 

 to students and teachers in agricultural schools and colleges, to 

 workers in agricultural experiment stations, and to all persons 

 interested in cultivated plants. While the book is, in the nature 

 of the case, largely a compilation, the author has apparently- 

 made the subject-matter his own. The treatment is concise, as 

 complete as should be expected, and about as interesting as such 

 material can well be made. The author intends the work as a 

 textbook, and Part II, which treats the economic plants by fam- 

 ilies, is deemed by him sufficient for a course of one half year, 

 involving one recitation and two laboratory periods per week. 



In the preparation of the book, the author has had in mind 

 non-agricultural as well as agricultural schools, for, he says 

 (p. v), "it cannot escape notice that there is a growing tendency, 

 wherever botany is taught, to tie it up more closely with economic 

 interests." Undoubtedly this is so, but the reviewer cannot but 

 consider that it would be pedagogically and scientifically unfor- 

 tunate for a student to get his conception of the nature and scope 

 of botany as a science from any specialized treatment of only one 

 group of plants. Such a course has too great limitations to be 

 adequate for purposes of general culture, or as an introduction 

 to the methods and scope of botanical science. In other words, 

 it would seem to the reviewer unfortunate for students in agri- 

 cultural colleges to be introduced to botanical science by such a 

 course in applied botany as is presented in the book under review, 

 or any other book of similar scope and aim. This view appears 

 also to be in harmony with that of the author. 



As the author suggests in his preface, the use of his Part II 

 will, in most schools, be preceded by a general course, aiming "to 

 give the student a survey of the plant kingdom and an acquaint- 

 ance with the large outstanding facts and principles of botany." 



* Robbins, Wilfred, W., The Botany of Crop Plants, pp. i-xix -|- 68i, Figs. 263, 

 Philaflelphia, P. Blakiston's Son & Co. $2.00 net. 



