BOOK REVIEWS. 



417 



"The Vegetable Grower's Guide." By John Wright, V.M.H., and 

 Horace J. Wright. Vol. II., 4to., 350 pp. (Virtue, London, 1909.) 21s. 



The first volume of this work has already been reviewed, and the second 

 has just reached us. As for the first, we have little but praise for such 

 an excellent, well-printed, and beautifully illustrated book. The work is 

 most comprehensive, and deals with soil management, manuring, rota- 

 tional cropping, the destruction of enemies, making of kitchen gardens, 

 forcing, &c, including mushroom culture. In fact, there is scarcely a 

 subject that is not treated in a most capable manner. The coloured 

 plates and the practical drawings and diagrams are very good, and the 

 combination of valuable information and beauty of illustrations will 

 appeal to most readers. The best varieties of vegetables of each kind 

 are given, and if the instructions of cultivation are followed out, a very 

 high standard of gardening will be the result. Happily, the love of 

 gardening is increasing amongst all classes, greatly to the benefit of the 

 whole community, and though this work will be too expensive for the 

 humbler devotees of horticulture, it is well within the reach of their 

 richer brethren. A very good index finishes a most useful work. 



"A History of Botany, 1860-1900," being a continuation of Sachs's 

 " History of Botany, 1530-1860." By J. Eeynolds Green, Sc.D., F.R.S. 

 8vo., 543 pp. (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1909.) 9s. 6d. net. 



The reader will be prepared to be assured that this work is quite equal 

 to Sach's, and as complete an epitome as possible of what has been done 

 in physiology, &c. since 1860. There are three "Books": 1. Mokphology 

 (91 pp.) ; 2. Anatomy (70 pp.) ; 3. Physiology (214 pp.). 



Besides the author's own well known researches, he has gathered 

 together most carefully a vast collection of matter, requiring no less 

 than 32 pp., of Bibliography, or, roughly, 800 names of botanists. 



The book is a valuable one for reference on every subject dealt with by 

 physiological botanists of the last fifty years. 



It was hardly to be expected that the author would go outside this 

 sphere and discuss the important subject of Ecology, which is too young to 

 have grown to the dimensions of its older confrere of Physiology ; but in 

 the next "Jubilee " we may hope to find it treated in full, as Schimper 

 and Warming have done. 



" Botany of To-day. A Popular Account of Eecent Notable Dis- 

 coveries." By G. F. Scott-Elliot, M.A., B.Sc, &c. 8vo., 352 pp. 

 (Seeley, London, 1909.) 5s. net. 



This excellent work, mainly a compilation from a vast number of 

 authors, puts present-day Botany in its true position, considering the 

 physiology of plants as the interpreter of their structures and habits. 

 There are 29 chapters. The following subjects will give a general idea 

 as to the author's plan. As everything alive depends on Protoplasm, he 

 begins with the question "What is Protoplasm?" Starting with the 

 theory that plants commenced as aquatics, Sea-weeds and Leaf Green is 

 the second chapter ; then, The First Land-plants ; Bacteria ; Rock 

 Lichens ; Mosses, and the Fern Alliance ; Alpine, Arctic and Antarctic 



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