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JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



has been written to cover the ground required. There is, perhaps, little 

 in the book to specially merit the term "agricultural," but as an intro- 

 duction to the study of geology it has much to commend it. Little 

 attention is paid to fossils, but much to the forces that have been 

 at work in moulding the land. Notes upon the distribution of the 

 various strata according to age throughout England and Wales are 

 given, and a general statement is frequently made as to the fertility of 

 the overlying soil or the reverse. A useful chapter is that on Water 

 Supply. A large number of diagrammatic illustrations are given, together 

 with a geological map of England and Wales, and a good index. 



" Vegetable Physiology." By Professor J. Reynolds Green, F.R.S. 

 8vo., 459 pp. (Messrs. J. & A. Churchill, London.) 10s. Gel. net. 



This is the second edition of one of those text-books upon a part of 

 the science of botany that play such a useful part at the present day, when 

 the whole subject has become so great that no one man can deal adequately 

 with its several parts, and no one text-book can, unless it reaches 

 unwiefty proportions, contain an outline of the several parts with due 

 regard to the importance of each. To the student who desires to supple- 

 ment the usually meagre account of this most important branch of 

 botany contained in the average text-book, this book can be cordially 

 recommended. The -account is written in a clear and accurate manner, 

 and the author insists upon the essential similarity between plants and 

 animals so far as their physiology is concerned. The book is well 

 illustrated, clearly printed cn good paper, and well and neatly bound. It 

 will serve to give that grounding in the fundamental facts of vegetable 

 physiology necessary to a full appreciation of the more advanced text- 

 books of Sachs, Vines, and Pfeffer, and itself contains sufficient to give 

 the power of interpreting with accuracy the ecological observations that 

 the student may make from time to time. In so far that a knowledge of 

 vegetable physiology is as necessary to the gardener as a knowledge of 

 animal physiology is to the doctor who has to prescribe foods, and settle 

 the environment of his patients so far as he can, this book should prove 

 of great benefit to the gardener, although it does not touch upon some 

 of the points in vegetable physiology with which the gardener is brought 

 into very close contact. 



"Mendelism." By R. C. Punnett, M.A. 10mo., 85 pp. (Macmillan 

 & liowes.) 2s. net. 



So great has been the advance in the study of the laws of inheritance 

 that the first edition of this little book on " Mendelism " had become out 

 of date though published as lately as May 1005. This second edition 

 contains a brief account of Mendel and his work, and of the experiments 

 which have been carried out subsequently along the lines laid down by 

 Mendel. The author points out how that recent work has made clear the 

 reason why two white sweet peas crossed together should sometimes give a 

 purple, and why two hairless stocks should revert to the hairy form, and 

 these reasons are worked in witli the account of dihybridism in its 

 various aspects. He shows how the new combinations of characters that 

 aro possible give the "novelties" the horticulturist craves, and how a 



