TgTo] CURRENT LITERATURE 311 
the morphological, ecological, and physiological treatment of each topic is 
kept rather distinct. At times excellent work that is suggested in physiology 
is quite unrelated to the other work with which it appears, as when the physi- 
ology of turgidity and osmosis is interpolated under the caption of ha mor- 
phology of flowers,” or the tropisms under “the morphology of fruits 
There is confessedly presented more work than can be done ina year. The 
teacher must adjust the course to his needs and facilities. The outline will 
doubtless prove most valuable in directing many teachers so that they can 
arrange the kind of course that best suits their needs. An appendix gives 
the unit statements for courses in secondary schools as they have been out- 
lined by the special committees, one from the Botanical Society of America 
and the College Entrance Board, and the other from the North Central Asso- 
ciation of Colleges and Secondary Schools. These are the two representative 
organizations that have attempted to outline these statements, and therefore . 
their units should be of particular interest to botanists. 
Teachers of botany and botanists in general are greatly indebted to Pro- 
fessor GANONG for this book, which should be influential in enhancing the 
educational efficiency of science and particularly of botanical science.—O. W. 
ALDWELL 
Tropical agriculture 
Agriculture in the tropics is the title of a book? designed to treat chiefly 
of the commercial aspects of tropical plants, and is in no sense a guide to the 
practice of agriculture. The most valuable arable lands of the tropics are now 
under the control of white people, and the book obviously is intended to furnish 
them with data that “may be helpful and thought-stimulating for the student, 
administrator, or traveller.” The great influence of “we ’ civilization 
and segues is credited with having brought a revolution in n tropical agri- 
cultur 
tas Iand II (“The preliminaries to agriculture” and “ The principal culti- 
vations of the tropics”) will be of interest to students of plant life, while these 
parts and parts III and IV (“Agriculture in the tropics” and “Agricultural 
organization and policy”) will interest geographers and economists. Topics of 
special interest in part I are land and soil, climate, drainage and irrigation, and 
plant life in the tropics (acctinvattestinay. In part II there are presented the 
leading tropical economic plants and plant products, their botanical nature, 
history, cultivation, productivity, use, marketability, commercial importance, 
adaptability to new regions, and dangers from plant and animal parasites. In 
part IIT much attention is given to the need of giving modern agricult 
education to the peasants who farm the tropical estates 
The book contains an immense amount of statistical juniter relative to the 
s, J. C., Agriculture in the tropics; an elementary treatise. pp. xviii+ 
aa2, ane 25. Calaboeldes Biological Series. London: Cambridge University Press. 
$2. 
