MINNESOTA PLANT DISEASES 109 
has rendered us a true service in compiling all the scattered facts, 
and in making available the accumulations of knowledge that have 
been tuned away beyond the reach of the general public of plant 
cataloguing and describing of plant diseases’’; he has sought “ to 
disseminate knowledge about the conditions of diseased and healthy 
plants and about the more destructive parasites,” and has certainly 
’ succeeded in writing a book that is packed full of infomaltiol and 
of interest. 
There are three factors to be considered: ‘“ the immediate cause 
edia e 
pee r deals with all these points and with fungi cape leaving 
side the diseases caused by insects. The seco ond part of the work 
is papnnes: by an account of the specific diseases that have been 
0 co 
growth and development, their life-methods and life-histories. He 
then goes on to describe them in separate groups as algal fungi, sac 
fungi, and basidium-bearing fungi. There is a continual repetition 
of statements and descriptions whieh i is, to a large extent, unavoid- 
able in dealing with such a ten ae subject; but the effect on the 
reader is somewhat bewildering. The elementary — instructive 
rk to’ 
be of great advantage to the student of Minnesota plant dise 
. Freeman has tried—not always successfully—to niacity 
nomencla ture i Aiba ane ig cea eae in the place of the 
= na Bs dise apes 2 age We are unavoidably 
that included such names as the “ Sickener ” an e ‘* Sickener’s 
sister.” Though it might aid ae the extension of knowledge = 
the subject if homelier names could be employed, there would bein 
a a corresponding ads in exactness; thus‘‘ Smother Fungus,” 
of Freeman’s new terms, might be applied to many others be- 
fides Thelephora laciniata to chick it is bey ocated. ‘‘ Saddle fungus” 
commends itself as appropriate after you find out ape er s 
igni * Helvella 
discovered wen the book was written, and paca te nnd * no sure 
method pot prevention is known.” Almost simultaneously two 
pape’ ge | ioilisad by Ludwig Hecke and, a little later, by 
Brefeld, describing mo aes nvincingly the nhctex. of wheat and 
barley by smuts and the farther developments of the 
contribution of the Gatien botanists to our knowledge of the life- 
