BOOK REVIEWS. 



143 



microflora of the soil and the growth of plants, a line which has been 

 developed to a considerable degree at Rothamsted Experimental 

 Station, which the author directs, and this has called for a new 

 chapter in this edition. Perhaps, in the present state of knowledge 

 of soils, and the brevity necessary in such a monograph as this, it is 

 inevitable that the account, masterly as it is, should seem somewhat 

 inconsecutive. The problems presented are so many-sided and the 

 literature so scattered that it is a remarkable achievement to compress 

 the multitude ol facts into so small a space, and to correlate them as 

 the author has done. Investigators owe him thanks, too, for pointing 

 out directions in which further research can be profitably undertaken, 

 and the bibliography adds much to the value of the book to students. 



" My Shrubs." By Eden Phillpotts. 4to. 132 pp. ; with 50 

 illustrations. (John Lane, London and New York, 1915.) 10s. net. 



" My Shrubs " is a charming book, and will be a welcome 

 acquisition to the cultivator of hardy and half-hardy plants, while the 

 illustrations and general get-up of the work are everything that could 

 be desired, and, as might be expected from the author, it is a pleasantly 

 written book. 



At the outset, it is, however, well to remind the reader that the 

 shrubs mentioned include hardy, half-hardy, and greenhouse kinds, 

 and many, too, are little known outside the walls of a botanic garden. 

 The writer has a thorough knowledge of his plants and their peculiari- 

 ties ; indeed, rarely have we read a book on shrubs that so reflects 

 our own ideas on their value for ornamental planting. It is not, of 

 course, possible for every cultivator to provide indoor winter quarters 

 for the tender species, not to speak of the work entailed by keeping 

 them in pots and transferring them annually to their out-of-door 

 positions in the garden, ^but the beauty of flowers of many of these 

 half-hardy and greenhouse species makes up for the labour expended 

 in their cultivation. Dwarf forms of trees are always interesting, and 

 the writer seems to have a good selection, though there are others 

 that might well be added to the list, including the pigmy form of 

 the common hawthorn and a form of our native Juniper which grows 

 in the famous collection at Murrayfield, Edinburgh. 



It is curious that the Bear's Grape, Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, does not 

 succeed with Mr. Phillpotts, for we have no trouble with it even in 

 London, but it wants a dryish rather than a damp soil. The Nevada 

 species does charmingly beside the latter, but in cooler soil. We have 

 found the Osage Orange (Madura) wants a gravelly subsoil with good 

 loam atop, and if confined only to one species of Magnolia we should 

 certainly name M. stellata for the garden of moderate proportions. 



Sutherlandia Jrutescens is a charming shrub, but it cannot be de- 

 pended on in this country any more than can some of the rare and 

 more beautiful members of the Rhododendron family. 



