BOOK REVIEWS. 
177 
elementary laboratory and field exercises with soils and plant-roots. 
Each exercise is divided into three parts : equipment, method, and 
discussion. The last is necessarily short, and will need to be amplified 
by the teacher in order to show the relation of one exercise to another 
and to the growth of plants. Any teacher needing a guide to a short 
but fairly complete series of exercises with soil will find this little 
book of very great value, and an earnest study of the different 
exercises in the book would make the young student far wiser after 
than when he started the study. 
'* Public Parks and Gardens of Birmingham." By R. K. Dent. 
8vo. 80 pp. (Birmingham City Parks Committee.) 2s. 6d. 
This record is of much more than local interest. It recounts the 
story of the inception, progress, and development of the Public Park 
and Open Space movement in a great industrial centre, and tells how 
a gradually-roused sense of public duty in this direction in local 
governing bodies and public-spirited benefactions on the part of land- 
owners have ensured " lungs " in all parts of the great city of Birming- 
ham. Twenty-five parks, thirty-six recreation grounds, and nineteen 
open spaces, with a total area of over 1,425 acres, are a record for any 
old industrial city to be proud of, and the City Council has these under 
its care, besides some 20,000 street trees. The illustrations show what 
success has been attained in spite of the black pall which dims the 
light, and speak well for the enlightened care bestowed upon the open 
spaces. 
" In a College Garden." By Viscountess Wolseley. 8vo. xvii 
+ 2 55 PP- (J onn Murray, London, 1916.) 6s. net. 
" Women and the Land." By Viscountess Wolseley. 8vo. xiv 
-f- 230 pp. (Chatto & Windus, London, 1916.) 5s. net. 
The work of women on the land is no new thing even in this country, 
though of late years it has become gradually less, until the Great War 
gave an impetus to it which will probably be felt for many years 
and may have very lasting and beneficial effects. Women's connexion 
with the land has been mainly with dairy work, harvesting of various 
types, hoeing, and other " lighter branches of agriculture," or with 
the home garden and the utilization and preservation of its products. 
Technical education, as developed mainly by the County Education 
Committees, has led to training in better methods of dairying (but 
generally, so far as women are concerned, only on the butter and 
cheese-making sides of it), poultry-keeping and utilization, bee-keeping, 
jam-making, fruit-preserving, and so on, but, as a rule, far less to 
actual work upon the land itself. We cordially agree with the 
authoress that in such things as these alone are short courses of 
instruction likely to be of service — they are, indeed, matters with 
which many girls are in daily contact from their childhood; and 
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