137 
BOOK REVIEW. 
"Notes on Soil and Plant Sanitation on Cacao and Rubber 
Estates," is the title of a book lately received from London. Its 
author is Mr. Harold Hamel Smith, who has written other 
books and is editor of Tropical Life, one of our most valued ex- 
changes. There is an introduction by Professor Wyndham 
Dunstan, Director of the Imperial Institute, who wisely suggests 
that, since agriculture is a profession, tropical agriculture must 
be taught by trained professors at a college situated in the tropics. 
This suggestion may fairly be treasured by the authorities of- this 
Territory, as the nucleus of a vision of the College of Hawaii 
becoming a world university of tropical agriculture. xA.s a mat- 
ter of fact, methods of doing things in Hawaii are quoted by 
periodicals devoted to tropical agriculture in every quarter of 
the globe, and the very book here under brief review contains 
much of reference to rubber experiments in Hawaii. 
Including the index the book contains 632 pages, besides fifty- 
two pages of prefatory matter. The author pleads the necessity 
of treating plant diseases the same as maladies affecting human 
beings, with regard both to prevention and eradication. A score 
or more of authorities are quoted, including our own Messrs. 
Jared G. Smith and E. V. Wilcox, in confirmation of the views 
advanced and elucidation of cultural methods presented. Among 
many illustrations in the book two are from Hawaiian photo- 
graphs. Horner's deep tillage implement and Horner's cultiva- 
tor, used on Hawaiian sugar plantations, are mentioned as hav- 
ing been recommended for rubber and cacao plantations by Mr. 
Frank Evans, attached to the Trinidad agricultural department, 
but temporarily engaged by the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' As- 
sociation. "Why Hawaii Suits Ceara" is the leading topic of 
Part V of the book. 
There is valuable information in the volume, supported by 
leading authorities, on the advantages of forest and isolation 
belts, or of stump pulling, the evils of deforestation, and the se- 
rious losses occasioned by soil erosion, reduced or uncertain rain- 
falls, etc., and how they can be avoided or partially remedied. 
Several emphatic pages are devoted to rat extermination. It is 
stated that the present epidemic of plague in India, from its ap- 
pearance in 1896 up to April last year, had caused 5,250,000 
deaths. Plague is universally conceded to be disseminated chiefly 
by rats. 
John Bale, Sons & Danielson, Ltd., medical publishers, Oxford 
House, 83-91 Great Titchfield street, London, W., are publishers 
of the book, whose price is $2 net. 
