THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
47 
the supply of some volumes has been reduced to less than a 
hundred sets. Many people imagine that in selling its back 
numbers, a magazine is getting paid for practically worthless 
stuff. This may be true of the magazines whose contents are of 
temporary interest, but all technical magazines are worth pre- 
serving and reading again and again. The contents of The 
American Botanist consist of interesting and pertinent facts. 
A hundred years from now they will be just as significant as 
they are at present. They will bear frequent reading for no 
one can carry all this information in his head. They will form 
a better encyclopedia of economic and ecologic botany than 
can be found anywhere else for the money. And less than one 
hundred more persons can hope to own a complete set ! Our 
ofifer to supply free the numbers missing from subscribers files 
is hereby withdrawn for all volumes preceding volume nine. 
The supply is exhausted. 
* * * 
Occasionally we have a dissatisfied subscriber. One such 
recently ordered his subscription stopped and added : ''There 
seems to be no common language in which we can talk about 
plants intelligently unless we have made a study of them and 
this I cannot find time to do." This again points to the fact that 
the common language of botany is almost a separate dialect 
and raises the question whether a magazine can be made at 
once so clear in expression and so interesting botanically as 
to secure the requisite number of subscribers to make it a pay- 
ing enterprise. An examination of the most "popular" guides 
to botany will show a vast number of technical terms which 
must be understood before the book can be. These terms, 
however, soon become familiar without conscious effort if one 
attempts to use the guide and since this is so, it does not seem 
worth while to make a magazine too untechnical. A few 
puzzles in one's reading is good for anybody and the very 
acquiring of the facility to use botanical expressions increases 
one's vocabulary immensely. Incidently, however, the readers 
of this magazine will note the rare company they are in if 
able to understand its contents. 
