194 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
" The Cultivation of Allotments." By P. Elford and S. Heaton. 
8vo. 62 pp. (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1917.) Paper covers, Sd. net. 
Not a little good has been done by the publication of booklets on 
Allotment Gardening during the present year, and especially valuable 
have they been when they have been intended for certain definite 
districts and have dealt with crops which have been found to " do 
well " in those districts. The present is one of this type, and very 
good it is. The only fault we have to find with it is that it makes no 
attempt to show which crops are the most valuable as foods ; which, 
that is, give the greatest return for the amount of soil occupied by 
them, and for the cost of seed and cultivation — no, not quite the only 
fault, for we cannot but regard the practice of burning turf as a very 
wasteful one, not to be recommended even in the case of heavy soil. 
If it is too rough and full of perennial weeds to turn in, then it is better 
to stack it for future use. The weeds will die if stacked closely and rot 
down to a useful manure. Apart from these little criticisms, we have 
nothing but praise for this most useful little book. 
" Food Gardening for Beginners and Experts." By H. V. Davis, 
B.Sc. 8vo. 44 pp. (Bell, London, 1917.) 6d. net. 
" Vegetable- Growing in War-Time.' ' By H.Cowley. 8vo. 30 pp. 
(Country Life, London, 1917.) 6d. net. 
These are two further useful little handbooks on vegetable-growing 
giving both general and detailed information on the management 
of kitchen-garden crops. Neither of them makes enough of the 
sowing of such things as beet, carrot, and other crops in July, although 
successional cropping is dealt with in both. In the former book too 
much is promised in some cases. Rarely indeed can peas sown on 
March 3 be harvested on June 2, and cleared away on that date to be 
followed by dwarf beans, which in their turn are disposed of by 
September and their place taken by swedes or turnips. September 
is, in most places, too late to sow swedes, and first-early peas, even in 
our own warm soil in a warm district, sown in the open in the middle 
of January never give us a first picking before June 5 or 7 and are 
not ready to clear away until the third week in the month. Strangely 
enough, too, neither mentions the sowing of onions in August for 
transplanting next year : that best of all methods for circumventing 
the onion-fly. And on the question of onion-growing there is a 
diametrical difference of direction : the one book tells us to keep the 
hoe going ; the other instructs us on no account to use the hoe ! We 
are inclined to think sugar-beet will not find a. permanent place as a 
garden crop as a substitute for sugar or for use as a vegetable, but 
for those who incline to try it a long paragraph in the former book 
gives directions. It is not to be dug up till October, and by that time 
most of the fruit used for jam-making in the household will have passed 
its prime, unless it has been " pulped " — a process little understood 
in most households, thpugh^cornmon enough in the jam-factory, . 
