Books and Current Literature. 



113 



who have charge of the various laboratories and of the field 

 experiments. 



Special mention should be made of the selection and 

 breeding of plants for some special quality, which has been car- 

 ried on for a period of years. The record of successsful achieve- 

 ment includes the acquisition of blight- and drought-resistant 

 varieties of vegetables and cereals, together with higher product- 

 ivity, hardiness and other specially prized qualities of various 

 fruits and flowers, besides the careful testing of a long list of new 

 strains of useful and ornamental plants, from corn and potatoes to 

 chrysanthemums and Easier lilies. Wilt-resistant melons, new 

 and promising citrus fruits, new varieties of figs, millet and alfalfa 

 suited to dry regions, alkali-resistant sugar beets, winter oats 

 and spelt, pure strains of durum wheat adapted to different 

 regions, cotton of high lint index, composite breeds of corn, im- 

 proved varieties of tobacco, asparagus and other crop plants, 

 represent only a part of what is being accomplished in this re- 

 markable application of science to the affairs of every day life. 

 It is a matter of congratulation that, in spite of occasional ill- 

 founded criticism, this great department of the public service has 

 gone steadily on its way from year to year, until it stands wholly 

 alone in the civilized world in the magnitude, variety and value 

 of its undertakings. 



Recent numbers of the Botanisches Centralblatt indicate 

 unabated activity on the part of botanical investigators and 

 writers, and, as usual, over so wide a field as to suggest the in- 

 quiry what limits, if any, are to be assigned to the domain of 

 botanical science. The treatment of the subjects included under 

 upwards of twenty different subdivisions is so various, and in 

 some cases the notices and reviews are condensed to such a degree 

 that it is difficult to give an adequate notion of the paper re- 

 viewed. There are, however, in nearly every number reviews 

 of important contributions from which it seems desirable to 

 quote, though, owing to limitations of space, this can be done 

 with only a few out of the many that might profitably be noticed. 



