BOOK REVIEWS. 



109 



" Les Plantes Tropicales de Grande Culture," Tome I. By M. E. de 

 Wildeman. 8vo. 398 pp. (Castaigne, Brussels, 1908.) 10 fr. 



So rapid has been the progress in recent years in the investigation of 

 tropical diseases, and so tangible already are the results of that in- 

 defatigable research, that it is safe to predict the early dawning of an era 

 when the European may betake himself to the tropics unburdened by 

 that consciousness of danger to life, or, at best, enfeeblement of con- 

 stitution, which has hitherto, and with good reason, been the weightiest 

 of restricting influences upon the white man's enterprise within the 

 tropics. 



This restriction removed, widely extended attention will surely be 

 directed towards the profitable exploitation of those vast areas, now virgin, 

 which lie within the tropics, and literature dealing practically and scienti- 

 fically with tropical agronomy is, therefore, literature in season. 



But the pleasure and profit to be derived from books like the one now 

 under review must by no means be limited to the benefit and enjoyment 

 of a coming generation of tropical colonists ; on the contrary there 

 actually exists a very present and pressing need of that " more light," 

 both academic and economic, on the subject of tropical vegetation and its 

 cultivation which is afforded by the original research and carefully 

 collected information contained in M. de Wildeman's latest work. 



The object of the book is " to provide colonial administrators, and 

 particularly agriculturists, with a rapid survey of the history of certain 

 tropical products, and to make known the plants producing them," and 

 the book is written primarily for the benefit of the author's countrymen 

 and in relation to the Congo. 



With clearness of exposition and without prolixity the writer's object 

 is achieved, and although this first volume deals only with five plant 

 subjects — Coffee, Cocoa, Cola, Vanilla, and Banana — the historical survey 

 is bat a rapid one, and what is written of these plants is all very necessary 

 for the planter and the student of tropical botany alike to know. 



Rather than with an exposition of the most profitable methods of 

 cultivation we are furnished with the botanical history and status of 

 the plants, which the author holds rightly to be of prime importance ; 

 with instructive descriptions of the preparation for market of the com- 

 mercial products which render the plants valuable ; with the history, 

 mingled with legends, of the introduction- and extension of their use in 

 countries unsuited to produce them, as well as many useful statistics 

 upon the quantity and quality of these products in relation to the various 

 countries of their origin and as to the capacity to absorb them of the 

 markets to which they are sent ; and with some account of pests and 

 diseases to which unfortunately, these, like the economic plants of 

 temperate regions, are too generally subject, a knowledge whereof is 

 an essential item in the equipment of the cultivator expecting to succeed. 



Invaluable though a fuller treatment of the subject from a purely 

 cultural standpoint must have been, it could hardly be expected in 

 addition to the number and careful handling of the phases actually dealt 

 with in the work. 



In his "Introduction" M. de Wildeman strikes some notes which 

 with happy effect may sound in the ears and echo in the memories not 



