Annals of Horticulture in North America for 

 THE Year i88g. A IViini'ss of Passing Events^ and a 

 Record of Progress. Bv L. H . Bailey . Pp. 24q; cuts, ^2. 

 Rural Pii-blisliing Co., New York. Among the new books 

 of a horticultural nature there is none 

 Annals of which contains, inside of 250 pages, 



Horticulture. more good, practical sense and valuable 

 information than the Annals of Horti- 

 culture for i88g. It comes as a fruit of the past year, 

 containing nearly all that is new in the way of horticul- 

 tural information. It is crisp, fresh, juicy, and full of 

 the aroma of common sense. There seems to be no 

 rotten specks in it, and I think it not only serves a good 

 purpose now, but it will do to keep, and will show just 

 what the year 1889 brought us in the way of good things. 

 May succeeding volumes be as good ! — H. E. Van Deman . 



How to Make the Garden Pay. By T. Greiner. Pp. 

 2-J2. Illustrated. Philadelphia: IVilliain Henry Maule . 

 This is a good book. The author has cut loose from the 

 old methods of treating the vegetable garden, and has 

 presented a volume which is novel in design. He ap- 

 pears to have copied fewer of the old blunders and less 

 of the stereotyped expressions than any of the recent 

 writers. He has made more than a mere alphabetical 

 catalogue of garden vegetables with notes of a few lead- 

 ing varieties and leading points of culture. Over one- 

 half of the book is devoted to matters of 

 A New detail, which every gardener should know 



Vegetable before he undertakes the culture of any 

 ^oo^- vegetable. He devotes chapters to require- 



ments for success in market gardening, to 

 hints on marketing, irrigation, garden implements, cold 

 frames, hot-beds, forcing-houses, drainage, insects, fun- 

 gous diseases and the like. His three chapters upon 

 manures and fertilizers for the vegetable garden are the 

 best which have been written in this country in a garden 

 hand-book. The author has drawn well upon the prac- 

 tical science of the day, and wherever he has quoted, 

 has done so to good advantage. The book is never over- 

 drawn or inflated ; it does not hold out glaring induce- 

 ments ; and so far as we have seen, is never misleading. 

 The chapter on fungi is entirely inadequate to the sub- 

 ject, even for a concise hand-book of this size, and there 

 are some other points where perhaps a little more full- 

 ness would have been better. But the author's brevity 

 in certain places may come from his desire to be emi- 

 nently self-constrained, for he graciously informs us that 

 the book is not written by a professor of horticulture, 

 and is therefore "plain, practical common-sense, with- 

 out useless flourishes and poetic ornamentation." 



The second part of the book, which treats of the cul- 

 ture of the various vegetables, is written much after the 

 catalogue plan of older volumes, although it appears to 

 have improved upon them somewhat. The author has 

 no varieties to sell, and we therefore look upon his opin- 

 ions without prejudice. Upon the mechanical execution, 

 especially in the matter of cuts, we can not bestow so 

 much praise. Most of the cuts are trade cuts, a large 

 part of them being mere conventionalisms, and of no 

 practical use to the book. Some of them are entirely 

 inaccurate. The pictures of cabbage and tomato plants, 

 on page 126, for instance, would never be recognized 

 unless they were plainly labelled. On the whole, how- 

 ever, we can recommend the book for its intrinsic merits. 



How to Know Grasses by Their Leaves. By A. N. 

 M ' Alpine, with preface by Robert Wallace, ibmo. Pp. 

 q2. 18 plates. Edinburgh : David Douglass. Of all 

 plants, it would seem that grasses are the most difficult 

 to identify by leaves alone; and yet there are no plants 

 in which such indentification is so important. The herb- 

 age of pastures rarely comes into flower, or in 

 case it is not pastured too closely, the inferior Novel 

 species which cattle will not eat often mature, Grass 

 and the better species are obscured. It is a Book, 

 fact that there is no adequate knowledge of the 

 composition of permanent pastures, and the avowed ob- 

 ject of this neat little hand-book is to afford a key to 

 their study. To be sure, this is not a horticultural sub- 

 ject, but the method of presentation is so novel and so 

 well wrought that a review of it is in place wherever 

 good work is appreciated. The method of the little book 

 is very simple. In fact, its simplicity is its vital feature, 

 for to be intricate would mean to be useless. It is in- 

 tended for the intelligent farmer as well as the profes- 

 sional botanist. The author divides his essay into two 

 parts, the first of which considers the common pasture 

 grasses, and the second, grasses in general. He divides 

 all grasses into twelve groups, which are characterized 

 by leaves and leaf-sheaths. Group i considers colored 

 grasses ; group 2, the variegated species ; 3, the bulb- 

 ous and flat-ribbed grasses ; 4, cord-rooted ; 5, acute- 

 sheathed ; 6, net-sheathed ; 7, bitter-tasted ; 8, bristle- 

 bladed ; 9, hard-bladed ; 10, hairy ; 11, eared ; and 12, 

 ribless-bladed grasses. Into one or another of these 

 groups the diligent observer can place all British grasses 

 of any economic importance. The book is so novel in its 

 character, and this subject is so important, that it should 

 be in the hands of every student of plants. 



The Art of Preparing Vegetables for the Table. 

 Bv Sutton Sons, Reading, England, ibnio. Pp. 68. 



