458 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
crops for many years, while fields devoted to the cultivation of mint 
and lavender are not unfamiliar to those who know our countryside, 
but the difficulty of obtaining supplies of some of the most active 
medicinal plants has given an impetus to their cultivation such as 
could not have been imparted in any other way. The women of 
England have taken up the work of herb cultivation and collection 
whole-heartedly, and the National Herb-growing Association, of Queen 
Anne's Chambers, S.W., are to be heartily congratulated upon the 
success which has been attained. 
Whether the cultivation can be maintained after the war is a 
purely economic question, and the lessons learned now should go far 
to give an affirmative answer to it, for success depends, especially 
when only small cultures are attempted, not only upon knowledge 
of what and how to grow or collect, but upon how to prepare it for 
market and where to sell it, and co-operative drying and selling are 
the best solutions of these problems, as of many others that intimately 
affect the welfare of the countryside. 
The author has crammed her book with useful information, and 
with advice as to what is wanted by the buyer and how to provide 
it. We have often been at a loss when asked to recommend a book 
on the subject, at once complete and practical, and have usually 
had to recommend American publications for information about 
medicinal plants, but that will be so no longer. 
It may perhaps be as well to say that herb-growing is not likely 
to be an easy road to wealth, but it is an occupation suited to the 
means and abilities of many unable to undertake larger cultivations. 
Furthermore, it offers the scientifically inclined some tempting 
problems for solution, for undoubtedly some strains of plants, say 
of the deadly nightshade, produce greater quantities of the active 
principle upon which their value depends than others, and the future 
will find the buyer purchasing not on appearance but on analysis, 
paying for content of alkaloid and the like, just as the butter factory 
purchases milk, paying for the fat it contains. The first in the field 
with such high-bred strains as this will entail will be those to reap 
the benefit. 
" Our Food Supply : Perils and Remedies." By Christopher 
Turnor. 8vo., 171 pp. (Scribners, New York : " Country Life," 
London, 1916.) 2s. 6d. net. 
We can safely prophesy that many of the food supplies from abroad, 
which have hitherto been paid for by the interest due to us on our 
foreign investments, will in future have to be paid for by the export of 
goods or produced at home, and therefore a book like this cannot be 
too widely read, so that public opinion may speedily be prepared 
for the great changes in our countryside which must assuredly take 
place if we are to recover even in part from the present terrible strain. 
The book is written in a popular style, with large print and wide 
margins, and though containing little with which an ordinarily well- 
