716 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Beginning with the history of the Potato, it deals with conditions 

 influencing growth, with soils and manures, with seed, planting, manage- 

 ment, spraying, harvesting, storing, marketing, feeding, value, and also 

 breeding and selection. We have studied the Potato scientifically and 

 practically for many years, have grown many acres of this useful and 

 recently much boomed plant, but here we have a book dealing with the 

 subject, read and re-read, which we shall require to keep always near at 

 hand. Those who know most about the Potator will most appreciate this 

 new addition to the library. We do not say it is absolutely perfect. A 

 critic can find blemishes. Unfortunately the varieties are mostly not 

 English, and those that are have not identical names. 



"An Elementary Text-book of Botany," By Professor S. H. Vines, 

 M.A., D.Sc, F.R.S. Second edition. 8vo., 611 pp. (Swan Sonnenschein 

 & Co., London.) 9s. 



This appears to be merely a reprint of the first edition, of October 

 1898. Professor Vines is to be congratulated on the way in which he has 

 now for many years provided our more advanced students with text-books 

 covering the whole field of pure botany and on the skill and originality with 

 which he has in this work condensed the matter of his " Students' Text- 

 book." For some features of the larger work — notably the balance-sheet 

 of plant nutrition — we regret that room has not been found ; but still 

 more do we miss all mention of fossil forms, which throw such a flood of 

 light upon the affinities of living plants. The writers of text-books, 

 moreover, who occupy influential educational positions are precisely the 

 men who should have the courage to lead the way in adopting more 

 modern views on such important conclusions as those represented by our 

 systems of classification. We regret, therefore, Professor Vines's decision 

 to maintain the grouping of Angiosperms derived from Bentham and 

 Hooker's " Genera Plantarum " of more than twenty years ago ; and can 

 only hope that we may soon have the enlarged edition of the " Students' 

 Text-book " foreshadowed in the preface to the present work, which will 

 no doubt be brought in every respect up to date. 



" Garden Cities in Theory and Practice." By A. R. Sennett. 2 vols. 

 8vo., 1,404 pp. (Bemrose & Sons, London.) 21s. 



Horticulture is only incidentally touched upon in this work, it being 

 briefly discussed in the hundred or so pages dealing with garden cities in 

 their relation to agriculture. The author is an engineer, and the most 

 interesting parts of the book are those bearing on the laying-out of the 

 town, the construction of buildings, locomotion, &c, with special reference 

 to the site in progress of development near Hitchin. 



The sociological aspect of the question is dealt with at great length. 



" Carnations, Picotees, and the Wild and Garden Pinks." Edited by 

 E. T. Cook. 8vo. 162 pp. ("Country Life," Covent Garden, W.C.) 

 3s. Gd. net. 



There are several recent works on the Carnation, and this, the latest 

 of them, is undoubtedly the best. To begin with, paper, printing, and 



