200 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
bear a considerable resemblance to one another, as is to be expected, 
and a useful addition to both would have been an account of a method 
of making a hotbed without the aid of farmyard manure. Sprouting 
Potatos is recommended but clear directions are not given. Tripoli 
Onions are recommended, for autumn sowing, and very good bulbs 
are produced, but they will not keep. ' Bedfordshire Champion/ 
' Giant Zittau,' ' Autumn Triumph ' are all good for the purpose 
and far better keepers. " Tomatoes and Salads " is very useful, for 
it brings the growing of salads prominently before the beginner, who 
too seldom pays much attention to this branch of food production 
—a subsidiary but certainly an important one. " Small Fruits " is, 
again, a useful little book, but a warning against digging among rasp- 
berries would be an advantage. 
" Allotments and Small Holdings in Oxfordshire." By A. W. 
Ashby. 8vo. viii + 198 pp. (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1917.) 5s. net. 
The publication of this " Survey made on behalf of the Institute 
for Research in Agricultural Economics, University of Oxford," at 
the present time is particularly opportune. The minds of many are 
occupied by the necessity for making more of the land than is at present 
made, and large numbers of those who consider the matter look towards 
the more intensive cultivation of the land to attain this end, with at 
least as much assurance as the more extensive. Furthermore, of the 
many schemes, existent and embryonic, for enabling those broken in 
the war to lead an independent life none is perhaps more attractive 
than land settlement. 
The Survey is divided into two parts, the first dealing with allot- 
ments, the second with small-holdings. In each the genesis of the 
movements which led to their establishment is sketched, and the 
course of their development traced. The various Acts of Parliament 
governing them are clearly reviewed and the present state of the law 
on the matter lucidly explained. 
The discussion of the condition of the allotments and small-holdings 
necessarily involves a far wider statement than would embrace the 
allotments and holdings of Oxfordshire alone, for the principles on 
which successful treatment of such holdings depends had to be sought 
and stated, and it is here, and in the commentary the facts given 
make upon them, that the peculiar value of the book lies. 
The main difficulties in the way of success (apart from ignorance 
of cultivation) appear to be three: lack of capital, unwillingness to 
co-operate, or perhaps a suspicion of co-operation, and a tendency 
towards forming colonies of small-holdings remote from markets. 
Accessible markets are a sine qua non for successful small holdings, 
especially when failure to co-operate in placing goods on the market 
leads to waste of labour, time, and money in marketing. This same 
lack of co-operation increases the cost of working a holding, for expen- 
sive and little-used, but necessary, tools and labour-saving devices 
