NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 
ing as quick guides to lead to any given step 
in the test. Everywhere throughout the plan 
books are notations showing the retrogression 
of a plant under test. Deficiencies no less than 
excellencies must be noted, in order that the 
life history may be complete. 
One of the most interesting pages is that 
devoted to the cactus experiments, recording 
the kinds of cactus under test, how they were 
crossed, dates as to planting, points as to 
development step by step, and the like. Some- 
times it will take an entire page to give the 
mere facts as to a plant’s ancestry, showing in 
regular sequence the hybridizing steps it has 
taken, the region of the world from which it 
came, and the like. 
The plan book for the preliminary tests at 
Santa Rosa, where much of the work has its 
beginning, is smaller than the Sebastopol book 
but none the less interesting. Here are re- 
corded the earlier life-history events when the 
seeds are being sown and transplanted. Some 
of the pages of this book are an intricate maze 
of notations and diagrams, all presenting a 
bewildering mass of data to the on-looker but 
all clear and definite and instantly available to 
330 
