The American Naturalist. 



[April, 



details of structure by actual examination. The remainder of the 

 body of the book (pp. 85 to 207) is taken up with selected plants 

 whose structure is to be worked out, and here the treatment reminds 

 one of Wood and Steele's book and the corresponding chapters in Miss 

 Youmans's earlier books. There is here, however, a considerable im- 

 provement in the presentation of the matter, the pupil being led on by 

 questions which direct attention to different details. 



A valuable part of the book is found in the appendix, where direc- 

 tions are given for collecting and preserving materials for study. 

 Taken altogether, the book is a good one, although we cannot agree 

 with the author that gross anatomy alone, and that practically confined 

 to the flowering plants, is all that can be done in the secondary schools. 

 We prefer the work suggested by the Natural History Conference, as re- 

 ported by the Committee of Ten, and know from much personal ex- 

 perience that the high schools are rapidly supplying themselves with 

 compound microscopes, by means of which the pupils are obtaining 

 some knowledge of the lower plants, and of the vegetable kingdom as 

 a whole. Neither can we endorse what the author says in the preface 

 as to the relative value to the pupil of a knowledge of the higher rather 

 than the lower plants. But with all these criticisms it must not be 

 thought that the book is a poor one ; on the contrary, for schools where 

 the conditions are such as the author describes and where they must so 

 remain, the book is a very good one.— Charles E. Bessey. 



Botany in the United States Department of Agriculture. 

 —From the recent Report of the Secretary of Agriculture, we glean 

 the followings items, relating to the work in botanv. Investigations 

 for determining the strength of timbers of various species have been 

 continued in the Division of Forestry, no less than 13,000 tests having 

 been made during the year preceding the report. Measurements upon 

 a large scale of the rate of growth of pine trees have been begun and 

 some preliminary results obtained. Under this head the announce- 

 ment is made of the establishment of experimental plantings at several 

 points upon the Great Plains. In the Division of Botany the following 

 announcement is gratifying to botanists. " The herbarium of the 

 Department of Agriculture, commonly called the National Herbarium, 

 having out-grown its old quarters, was, by kind permission of the 

 Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, removed and well installed 

 in the fire-proof building of the National Museum, where it will be 

 cared for by the botanists of this Department. This herbarium is 

 steadily being built Up and enlarged at the expense of the Department 

 of Agriculture." 



