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THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



We find it difficult to imagine a more useful and inspiring 

 book for the plant student than that which is included between 

 the covers of ''Practical Field Botany", by A. R. Horwood. 

 The title exactly characterizes the book which deals with prac- 

 tically every phase of botany that can be studied in the field, 

 with a fair addition of other matters not so closely connected 

 with such work. It would take several lifetimes to carry out all 

 the investigations suggested or to answer half of the questions 

 propounded, and anyone who has a taste for plant study ought 

 to be able tO' select material here for many pleasant hours of 

 work. Though the book is written primarily for British stud- 

 ents, its value for use on this side of the water is not impaired 

 since many of the species mentioned are common to both coun- 

 tries, and the rest belong tO' familiar genera and are own cous- 

 ins to our species. Several good illustrations add interest to the 

 text. The book is published in this country by the J. B. Lip- 

 pincot Company and costs about $1.50. 



It is a poor publisher, indeed, who has not issued at least 

 half a dozen text books on agriculture and methods of treat- 

 ment are almost as numerous as the books themselves. Some 

 deal with the plant side only, some with plants and animals, 

 others deal principally with soils, and so on. In Henry Jackson 

 Waters' "Essentials of Agriculture" from the press of Ginn & 

 Co., we have a volume that plunges at once intO' the methods of 

 improving plants and animals, then takes up soils and their 

 properties and continues with a discussion of farm crops and 

 farm animals, the whole running through 37 chapters. A good 

 share of the book reads more like a Commercial Geography 

 than a farm manual and is too patently designed for recitation 

 purposes to suit the reviewer, who is of the opinion that the 

 high school student needs directions for actual work and exer- 

 cise under these directions instead of recitations about farming. 

 There are more than 200 good illustrations and some 475 pages 

 of text in the book, which costs $1.25. 



