1876.] Recent Literature. ' 295 
always a number of students who would like to hear a few lect- 
ures on some of the most interesting topics relating to botany, 
students intending to become clergymen, lawyers, business men, 
whose time is so occupied with historical or philosophical courses 
that they could not take a regular botanical course. The few 
minutes which they could spend in a laboratory would be time 
thrown away. They want a few plain lectures on some limited 
topic, and the topic should be changed from year to year. On 
one year there might be, for instance, six lectures on fertilization 
of higher plants. The next year a course on the lower limit of 
the vegetable kingdom. Or there might be two or three courses 
of six lectures during the same year. , 
yes ate 
RECENT LITERATURE. 
A Few Sueerstions on Tren-PLantine.! — The increased inter- 
est awakened of late in arboriculture may be attributed in part to a 
realizing sense that we have been forest-spendthrifts, and that it is about 
time for us to begin economizing, and if possible repair our wasted pat- 
rimony. There is a vague fear that certain dangers are impending over 
us as a penalty for recklessly clearing the timber lands, and there seems 
to be a very general wish that our neighbors should do something at once. 
Now, what to do and how to do it are not so clear. 
In a course of lectures last winter at the Lowell Institute, Dr. Hough 
gave a frank statement of the difficulties. In the Eastern States the tra- 
ditions of two hundred years are against tree-planting ; there is no con- 
cert of action in any community; there are many contingencies which 
may render the scheme in any one case a very hazardous one, and there 
18s, at all events, a long time to wait for any pecuniary profit. 
Besides these difficulties we may state another, namely, that in few 
towns are the assessors of taxes in a right frame of mind. And so each 
man would gladly see his neighbor do something at once. This little 
pamphlet by Mr. Sargent gives many sensible hints as to what to do, 
and we call attention to the aper because it is a practical one, advo- 
cating practicable methods. Meanwhile, as our communities are acting 
on Professor Northrop’s suggestion to plant centennial trees in the towns 
this year, can they not try a few centennial forests ? 
IE PFLANZENWELT Norwecens.? — This work is in two parts. 
The first, published in 187 3, is a general account of the physical features 
of Norway and Sweden, with particular reference to the distribution of 
C. S. Sareent, A. B., Director of the 
A Few Suggestions on Tree-Pianting. M : husetts State 
assachuse a 
1 
Amold Arboretum of Harvard University. From Report of 
Board of Agriculture, 1875, 
ens. Von Dr. F. C. ScHÜBELER. (The Vegetation of 
) 
2 Die Pfa 
Norway » by Professor Schiibeler, of the University in Christiania. 
