714 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



" Trees : a Handbook of Forest-botany for the Woodlands and the 

 Laboratory." By Dr. H. Marshall Ward. Vol. II. "Leaves." 8vo. 

 848 pp. (Cambridge University Press.) 4s. 6d. net. 



" The present volume is devoted to a close study of the external features 

 of the leaves of our woodland plants, especially from the point of view of 

 the morphological characters which are found to be of systematic value." 



Besides a classification of all the forms of leaves, the physiology of the 

 leaf, as, for example, its transpiration, respiration, and assimilation, is 

 discussed ; leaf-movements and insectivorous habits Are also treated of. 



" How to use Nitrate." Fifth edition. 8vo., 79 pp. (G. Street & Co., 

 London.) 



This little book is now in its fifth edition, and still has prefixed to it 

 the well-known and useful lecture by Dr. B. Dyer. The lecture and also 

 the succeeding pages are well worth careful studying. Although there 

 is naturally a bias in favour of nitrate of soda as the source of available 

 nitrogen, the facts stated and the arguments deduced are just and very 

 fair. There has lately been such a great deal of matter published, 

 especially in the periodic Press and in the form of pamphlets, at the 

 evident instigation of the syndicates and committees interested in 

 various manures, that it has become very difficult for the cultivator to 

 decide whether this or that article or letter has been stimulated for 

 public or personal interests. Most cultivators will agree that the advocate 

 for nitrate has a good case to put before them as jurors, and therefore, 

 when properly put as in this instance, the words demand attention, and 

 this should certainly be given. Where prices are given, 95 per cent, 

 nitrate of soda is reckoned as obtainable for 10s. per cwt., whereas for a 

 considerable time now it costs much more than this even when bought by 

 the ton. 



"The Book of the Potato." Ed. by T. W. Sanders. 8vo., 222 pp. 

 (W. H. & L. Collingridge, London.) 2s. Gel 



Apart from its great industrial value, gardening has great merit in a 

 literary sense, for not only does it maintain a remarkably prolific serial 

 literature, but it is the subject of books without number. It might have 

 been thought, so freely has the Potato been written about, that there 

 could possibly be nothing fresh to say concerning it ; but the author of 

 this book has succeeded in compiling a very interesting treatise in 

 which, if there be nothing new, matters are presented in a concise and 

 useful form that may be helpful to novices in Potato culture. The book 

 seems to have grown out of the remarkable "boom" which was so 

 successfully organised by certain Potato dealers in their own interests and 

 that of a few new varieties of Potatos last year ; but as that boom has 

 left behind the most depressing "slump " in Potato prices perhaps ever 

 known, we can but hope for the publishers' sake the book may meet with 

 better fortune than the objects of its publication have. The book is very 

 largely illustrated, especially with pictures of diverse Potatos. They help 

 the reader but very little, Hot only because less striking than are usually 

 seen in seedsmen's catalogues, but also because most modern varieties vary 



