BOOKS AND BULLETINS. 



505 



This is the neatest hand-book of its kind which has yet 

 come to our table. The mechanical execution of the 

 little book is elegant. The book is an 

 How to Cook enlargement of a chapter which ap- 

 Vegetables. peared a few years since in one of the 

 author's books upon general horticul- 

 ture. A few concise and well considered remarks of a 

 general nature open the volume, which is thereafter de- 

 voted to a series of recipes upon all the common vege- 

 tables. It is the best thing of the kind which we know. 



First Annual Report of the Springfield (Mass.) 

 Improvement Association. The Springfield Improve- 

 ment Association exists for the purpose of cultivating 

 "a public sentiment in favor of improving and beauti- 

 fying homes, streets and surroundings of Springfield, 

 and to endeavor to promote in every legitimate way the 

 best development of the whole city." The first year's 

 work has been an encouraging one. 

 A Model Among other things, a public bath-house 



Improvement has been erected through its efforts, im- 

 Association. provements of the river enbankment 

 have been inaugurated, and 6,450 tulip 

 bulbs have been distributed among the residents of the 

 city. The particular work outlined for next year, and 

 which has received attention during the past year as 

 well, is the following : ' ' To have our paved streets swept 

 daily ; to have the cobble stones between the tracks of 

 the street railroad replaced with block pavements, in 

 harmony with the paved streets ; to curb and straighten 

 Merrick Park ; to further urge the city to sprinkle the 

 streets ; and to make an effort for the appointment of a 

 road commission." Incidently the association aids in 

 other undertakings which look toward the elevation of 

 the beauty of the city, in literature and works of art. 

 It is just the kind of an organization which should be 

 emulated by other cities and villages in the country. 

 The report contains an essay on "Hints for Home Im- 

 provement," one upon "The Streets of a City," and 

 another upon the "Reform of Street Sprinkling." 



Southern Floriculture. A Guide to tlie Successful 

 Cultivation of Flowering and Ornamental Plants in the 

 Clinmte of the Southern States. By fames Alorlon . ibmo. 

 Pp.312. Illustrated. Clarksville , Tenn : IV. P. Titus. 

 A book on floriculture in the south is a welcome addition 

 to our list of horticultural books. This 

 A New one is a collection of cultural directions 



Flower Book. for various important plants, both ten- 

 der and hardy. The species have no 

 arrangement and no consecutive manner of treatment. 

 To us the book appears to lack method. The novice 

 will look for some chapters of a general nature upon the 

 management of soil, upon potting, training, watering, 

 propagation, laying out of grounds and borders, manner 

 of forcing, kinds of houses, etc., but none of these sub- 

 jects are discussed, if we except five pages upon "Green- 

 house Requisites and Appliances," which is entirely 

 inadequate even for the south. Another fault with the 

 book, to our mind, is the abundance of history and 

 poetry, which sometimes interfere with perspicuity of 



treatment, and which are never useful in a mere hand- 

 book or "guide to the successful cultivation" of plants. 



The book, of course, has many merits. The English 

 is much better than is usual in books of this class. The 

 directions are clear and sensible, and it will undoubtedly 

 prove a useful book. The chapter upon chrysanthe- 

 mums is particularly good. 



The Fairyland of Flowers. Popular Illustrated 

 Botany for tlie Home and Scliool. By Mara L. Pratt. 410. 

 Pp. Ij4. Illustrated . Boston: Educational Publishing 

 Company. "Teach your boys, also, the little legends 

 and poetry of the flowers — make the flowers real, living 

 things to them — teach them that the grandest men, many 

 of the most noted writers, have always loved the flowers, 

 and have thought it worth while to be very tender in 

 their dealings with them. Break up in your boys any 

 existing notion that flowers are 'good enough for girls' ; 

 or that it is manly to trample down the little purple vio- 

 lets, or to snap off the heads of the bright-faced daisies. 

 The average healthy, wide-awake boy may rebel at 'set ' 

 moralizing, but he is not insensible to the 

 beauty and grandeur of nature if only we are Child's 

 wise enough to present it to him in a way that Botany, 

 he can accept and understand. " This avowal 

 of the purpose of the book is healthful, sympathetic and 

 practical. We need to get more sentiment into the minds 

 of children rather than more out of them. The old style 

 of didactic or "set" moralizing is unnatural and repul- 

 sive, and much of the present distrust of sentiment is due 

 to it. When flowers become " real living things " to the 

 young, an indelible taste for nature is assured. This 

 "fairy land of flowers" seems to us to present a good 

 guide to the early observation and love of nature. It 

 requires the actual experience of the teacher with it to 

 test its strength, but it certainly undertakes the subject 

 in the right spirit. A few simple lessons introduce the 

 book upon how plants grow and flower, and an easy key 

 and flora follow. Short poems and some stories are in- 

 terspersed. Such a book — much like our Chatterbox 

 books — must be very attractive to a child. 



The illustrations are not alwa^'s good. Many of them 

 are simply ornaments to the page, as they show no char- 

 acteristics of the plants, while some are positively mis- 

 leading. A picture of an hepatica represents branching 

 and many flowered scapes ! One of the labiate nettles 

 is inserted to represent the true nettle, and the picture 

 of cockle represents anything but that plant. 



On Seedless Fruits. Memoirs of the Torrey Botanical 

 Club, Vol. I, No. 4. By E. Leiois Sturtevatit. Pp. 44. 

 -J cents. This is the second time that Dr. Sturtevant 

 has prepared an essay upon this subject, and it therefore 

 presents the results of a prolonged investigation. The 

 author is the possessor of a library very rich in economic 

 botany, and he is a wide reader : and he has 

 gleaned diligently for the facts in this paper. Seedless 

 The paper is an alphabetical catalogue of Fruits, 

 fruits which are wholly or partially seedless, 

 the term fruit being used in the horticultural sense. 61 

 entries are made. Among the fruits of common culture in 



